Kitabı oku: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860», sayfa 16

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES

Dies Irae: in Thirteen Original Versions. By Abraham Coles, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1859. pp. xxxiv., 70.

It is pleasant to see how many wiles Nature employs to draw off into side channels the enthusiasm which is always secreting itself and gathering in the human brain. She knows what a dangerous clement it may become, if the individual rills of it run together, and, with united forces, take for a time a single direction. So she taps it at its sources, and leads it away to various ends, useful because they are harmless. Bibliomania, tulipomania, potichomania, squaring the circle, perpetual motion, a religious epic, the northwest passage,—anything will serve the purpose. Divide et impera is her motto. The hobby is the safeguard of society. Once mounted, every enthusiast ambles quietly off on some errand of his own, caring little what direction he takes, provided only it be the other. The Fifth-Monarchy men might have been troublesome, but for the Beast in Revelation;—each insisted on a Beast to himself. Protestantism might have become Democracy, had either Luther or Calvin been willing to ride behind. The five points of the Charter are blunted to a Lancashire weaver who is fattening a prize-gooseberry.

We sympathize heartily with such gentle enthusiasms as this of Dr. Coles. It is the interest of all Grub Street that men should be encouraged whose amiable weakness it is to fall in love with pieces of poetry. In this case, to be sure, the verses are Latin, and the author more nameless even than Junius; but who knows but some one's turn shall come next whose verses were at least meant to be English, and whose name is—Legion? If some translator, charged from the other pole of Dr. Coles's enthusiasm, should favor us with thirteen Latin versions of some modern English poems, it would give them a chance of being more generally intelligible to the laity. Nay, even if such a baker's-dozen of mediæval-Latin renderings of Mrs. Browning's last poem—and by this term we mean, of course, the rather shady Latin of middle-aged men—should be shuffled together, we are not sure that it would not be a help to the understanding of the Coptic original. But this, perhaps, is hoping too much.

In the case of Dr. Coles, how lucky the direction of the superfluous energy! how wise the humane precaution of Nature! For there is no destructive agency like a doctor with a hygienic hobby. If your constitution be a salt or sugar one, he will melt you away with damp sheets and duckings; if you are as exsanguine as a turnip, his scientific delight in getting blood out of you will be only heightened. For such erratic enthusiasms as this of Dr. Coles we want a milder term than monomania. Something like monowhimsia would do. It is seldom that an oddity takes so pleasant a turn. He has published a dainty little volume, with a well-written introduction, giving the history of the "Dies Iræ," and an account of the various versions of it; this is followed by his own thirteen translations; and an appendix tells us what is meant by a Sequence, has a page or two on the origin of rhyming Latin, and concludes with the music of the hymn itself. The book is illustrated by delicate photographs from the Last Judgments of Michel Angelo, Rubens, and Cornelius, and from the "Christus Remunerator" of Ary Scheffer. It is exquisitely printed at the Riverside Press, which is doing such good service to everybody but the spectacle-makers.

We hold the translation of any first-rate poem, nay, even of any second-rate one which has any peculiar charm of rhythm or tone, to be an impossibility. The translation of rhyming Latin verses presents peculiar difficulties. The rhythm is always simple and strongly accented, it is true; but the ear-filling sonority, the variety of female rhymes, and the simple directness of expression cannot be echoed by our muffling consonants, our endings in ing and ed, and a-s, the-s, and of the-s. For example, the stanza,

 
"Tuba, mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionum,
Coget omnes ante thronum,"
 

is very inadequately represented by

 
"Trumpet, scattering sounds of wonder
Rending sepulchres asunder,
Shall resistless summons thunder,"
 

in which, to speak of nothing else, there are thirteen s-s to five in the original. Even Crashaw, whose translation of Strada's "Music's Duel" is a masterpiece for litheness of phrase and sinuous suppleness of rhythm, quails before the "Dies Iræ," and contents himself with a largely watered paraphrase. No one has ever yet succeeded more than tolerably with the opening stanza,—

 
"Dies Iræ, dies illa,
Solvet sæclum in favillâ,
Teste David cum Sibyllâ."
 

The difficulty is increased where the Latin word has some special force of theological or other meaning which has no single equivalent in English.

Doctor Coles has made, we think, the most successful attempt at an English translation of the hymn that we have ever seen. He has done all that could be done, where complete success was out of the question. Out of his first two versions, which seem to us the best, a very satisfactory rendering of the original can be made up by choosing the better stanzas from each. In his first trial he misses the pathetic force of the

 
"Rex tremendæ majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salva me, fons pietatis!"
 

where the petition is piercingly individualized by the accentual stress thrown on the me. He gives it thus:—

 
"King Almighty and All-knowing,
Grace to sinners freely showing,
Save me, Fount of Good o'erflowing!"
 

His second attempt is better:—

 
"Awful King, who nothing cravest,
Since Thyself full ransom gavest,
Save thou me, who freely savest!"
 

Here the emphatic me is preserved, but in neither version is the true meaning of salvandos even hinted at, and in both we miss the tenderness of the fons pietatis, with which the tremenda majestas is balanced and softened.

There are three or four of these Latin hymns that for simple force and pathos have never been matched in their kind, and never approached, except by a few of the more fortunate poems of Herbert, Vaughan, and Quarles. We know not why it is that what is called religious poetry is commonly so bad. The thing gives the lie to both the adjective and the noun of its title. Anything more flat and flavorless, whether in sentiment or language, is beyond the conception even of an editor with the nightmare. Men have been hanged for more venial murders than some have been praised for who have choked out the immortal soul of the Psalms of David. We have, however, the consolation of thinking that the Devil's Psalter of convivial songs is quite as bad.

Dr. Coles has done so well that we hope he will try his hand on some of the other Latin hymns. He cannot expect to satisfy those who have been penetrated by the almost inexplicable charm of the originals; but by rendering them in their own metres, and with so large a transfusion of their spirit as characterizes his present attempt, he will be doing a real service to the lovers of that kind of religious poetry in which neither the religion nor the poetry is left out. As we said before, to translate rhyming Latin without losing its peculiar tang is wellnigh impossible. Even Father Prout himself would be staggered by Walter Mapes's "Mihi est propositum" or "Testamentum Goliae"; but perhaps the spirit of the hymns is more easily caught, and Dr. Coles has shown that he knows the worth of faithfulness.

Mademoiselle Mori; A Tale of Modern Rome. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. Author's Edition. 16mo. pp. 526.

This is a reprint of a remarkable book. It is the book of a person familiar with Rome and with the Romans, who has thought seriously and felt deeply in regard to their character and fortunes, who has studied with keen and sympathetic imagination the hearts of the people, and observed closely the outward aspect and common shows of the city. The story is well constructed, and has the essential merit of interest. Not only are the characters distinctly presented, but there is in them, what it is rare to find in the personages of our modern novelists, a real and natural development, which is exhibited not so much by what is said about them as by their own apparently unconscious words and acts. So just a view is given in this novel of Italian habits of thought and tones of feeling, so true an appreciation is shown of the peculiarities of national disposition and temperament, and so intimate and exact an acquaintance with public events and the course of politics in Rome, as to lead to the conclusion that the author writes from the fulness of personal experience, and was no stranger to the interests of the stirring period in which the scenes of the story are laid.

The book, indeed, has a double character. It is not a mere novel; for it contains, in addition to its story, a sketch of the course of public affairs in Rome during the three memorable years from the accession of Pius IX. to the fall of the Republic and the entry of the French troops into the city, which they still hold in subjection to rulers who claim to govern it for the spiritual interests of the world. And while it may be warmly recommended to such readers as only desire to find an interesting story, it deserves not less hearty recommendation to such as may care to understand one of the most striking and dramatic episodes of modern history, and to gain an acquaintance with events which throw great illustration on the present condition and hopes of Italy. In this respect, as well as in the ability with which it is written, it may fairly be classed with the novels of Ruffini,—"Lorenzo Benoni" and "Doctor Antonio." To those who have read these two books it need not be said that this is high praise.

History is not treated by the author of "Mademoiselle Mori" after the common fashion of novelists. Events are not misrepresented in it, nor are the characters of the prominent actors in public affairs distorted to suit any theory, or to advance the interest of the story. The chief value of the book, and that which ought to secure for it a permanent place, does not, however, consist in any formal narrative of events, or in its pictures of noted individuals, but in its representation of the states of mind and feeling of the Romans during the first years of the pontificate of the present Pope, of the objects and methods of action of the various parties that were then called into active existence, of the occasions of the rapid changes in the popular disposition from the time when Pius IX. was the idol of the crowd to that when he was a faithless fugitive to Gaeta, and of the causes which led to the bitter disappointment and utter failure of the efforts of the Roman patriots.

We do not know of any book in which so intelligent and so true an account of these things, which were the springs from which events issued, and which underlie all their currents, is to be found. The sympathies of the author are with the liberal party, with the party that labored for reform, but not for a republic, and whose hopes and plans were crushed by the horrible assassination of Rossi. It is one of the most calamitous results of a tyranny like that exercised at Rome, that it renders a gradual progress of reform at any time when it may be undertaken almost an impossibility, and sows the seed of inevitable violence and of revolution, which is apt to end, as in the Roman instance, in a return of despotism. The view given of the Roman revolution and republic of 1849 by the author of "Mademoiselle Mori" coincides in the main with that taken by Farini, and the other chief Italian statesmen of the present day; and its accuracy and good sense are confirmed by the course of recent events, not merely in Rome, but in other parts of Italy as well. It is vain to predict the future of a state so anomalous as that of Rome; but it is safe to say that the Romans learned much from their last revolution, and are learning much from its results, so that, when another opportunity arrives for them to gain some share of that freedom which Northern Italy has been so happy in securing, they will not repeat their former mistakes, and will not be found less competent for liberty than the Tuscans or the people of the Romagna. Perhaps the failure of 1849 may then turn out to have been a dark blessing; and the blood of those who fell on the Roman walls, and the tears of those who have wept in Roman prisons, may not have been shed in vain.

The cause of Italy deserves the heartiest sympathy, and, if need be, a personal sacrifice on the part of every lover of liberty and of justice in the world. The question of Italian unity and independence is the most important that has been presented in Europe in our time. The issue involved in it is that of the advance or the degradation of a nation so noble that none can be called nobler,—of the rights of the many, as against the power of the few,—of the rights of thought, as against those of the sword,—of the establishment of those principles which do most to make life precious, as against those by which it is made vile and wretched. The last year has seen a part of the great work of freeing Italy accomplished. If Sardinia can but have time allowed her in which to knit her forces, if she can for a time escape from foreign attacks and from internal divisions, Italy is secure. Venice, Rome, and Naples will not long languish under the tyranny of Austrian, of priest, and of Bourbon.

We return for a few words to "Mademoiselle Mori." The readers of Mr. Hawthorne's imaginative Italian romance will be pleased to find in this book further illustrations of the Rome he has so admirably pictured. The author has not the genius of Mr. Hawthorne, but the descriptions which the book contains of Roman scenes and places are full of truth, and render the common, every-day aspect of streets and squares, of gardens and churches, of popular customs and social habits, with equal spirit and fidelity. The interest of the story is sustained by the distinctness with which the localities in which it passes are depicted. The style of the book is so excellent that we the more regret a few careless and clumsy expressions, and some awkward sentences, which a little pains might have prevented. We regret also that the Italian words and phrases which appear in the volume are sometimes grievously disfigured by misprints. The distinguished name of Saffi is travestied by being misprinted Gaffi,—and there are other blunders of the same sort, in which the Riverside Press has but too faithfully followed the English edition.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. Collected and republished by THOMAS CARLYLE. In Four Volumes. Boston: Brown and Taggard. 1860.

Carlyle's Essays need at the present day no introduction or commendation to American readers. Their place is established, and they will hold it permanently, in spite of the wild philosophy, and in spite of characteristics of style which would ruin weaker writings. As Ben Jonson said of a volume of poems, now quite forgotten, by his friend Sir John Beaumont,—

"This book will live; it hath a genius; this Above his reader or his praiser is."

There is no fear that these Essays will be forgotten; for, beside their intrinsic merits and interest, they are at once introductory and supplementary to their author's more important works,—to his "French Revolution" and his "Life of Frederic the Great."

This new edition of the Essays is a reprint of the last English edition revised by the author, and both printer and publisher deserve high credit for the beauty of the volumes. The paper, press-work, and binding are all excellent, and of a sort not only to please the general public, but to satisfy the demands of the exacting lover of good books. We are glad to welcome Messrs. Brown and Taggard among our publishing houses, on occasion of the issue of a book so creditable alike to their taste and to their judgment, and we hope that the success of this edition of these Essays may he such as to encourage them to follow it with a reprint of the other volumes of the revised edition of Mr. Carlyle's works.

We trust, that, though the words "Author's Edition" are not found upon the back of the title-page, it is not because the moral, if not legal rights which the author possesses have been disregarded.

The Mill on the Floss. By GEORGE ELIOT, Author of "Scenes of Clerical Life" and "Adam Bede." New York: Harper & Brothers.

It is not difficult to understand how the reader's attention may he attracted and his interest retained by a romance of the old chivalrous days whose very name and dim memory fill the mind with fascinating images, or by a novel whose high-born characters claim sympathy for their dignified sorrows and refined delights, or whose story is illuminated by the light of artistic culture and adorned with gems of rhetoric and fine fancy; but it is sometimes surprising to observe the favor which attends a simple tale of humble, unobtrusive, we might almost say insignificant people, whose plane of life appears nowhere to coincide with our own, and to whom romance and passion seem entirely foreign. Such a tale was "Adam Bede," whose great success as a literary venture hardly yet belongs to the chronicle of the past; such a tale is also "The Mill on the Floss," by the author of "Adam Bede," and such, we are confident, will also be its success.

Both books have many elements in common, but the second is the greater work of art, and indicates more fairly the scope and vigor of the author's mind. It is written in the same pure, hardy style, strong with Saxon words that admit of no equivocation or misunderstanding; it is illustrated with sketches of outward Nature and tranquil rural beauty, none the less vivid or truthful that they are drawn with the pen rather than the brush; and it is instinct with an honest, high-souled purpose. In these respects it resembles "Adam Bede," but in others it surpasses its predecessor. It displays a far keener insight into human passion, a subtler analysis of motives and principles, and it suggests a mental and a moral philosophy nobler in themselves and truer to humanity and religion. The pathos, too, is more genuine; for it is not based upon the mere utterance of grief or of entreaty,—which the eloquent and the artful may, indeed, feign,—but it is found in that skilful combination of material circumstance and spiritual influence which impresses upon the feeling, more than it proves to the reason, that the hour of heart-break is at hand, and which depends less for its effect upon the dramatic power of the imagination than upon the instant sympathy of the soul.

The principal fault which will be found with "The Mill on the Floss," and probably the only one, is, that the action moves too slowly and tamely in the first three or four books, and that the author shows an undue inclination to reflection and metaphysical digression. This will, indeed, be a great objection to the superficial reader, who will impatiently regret that the tedious growth of a miller's boy and girl should usurp so many pages which might better have been filled with exciting incidents. But this very elaboration, tardy and idle though it may seem, was necessary to the completion of the author's plan, and—in our eyes—instead of being a blemish upon a fair story, is one of its principal charms. On this very account, however, the book will be less popular, and fewer persons will admire it wholly; but, as thoughtful readers draw near to the end of the narrative, and anxiously hasten on past trial, temptation, and conflict, to the dreaded and yet inevitable downfall, muse mournfully over the agony and remorse that follow, and slowly close the volume upon tender forgiveness and final joy, they will be thankful for the far-seeing genius which, by this gradual process of education, enabled them to understand clearly the fateful scroll at last unfolded to them, and which, if they have read in the true spirit, has made them wiser and better.

Nugamenta; a Book of Verses, By GEORGE EDWARD RICE. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co. 1860. pp. 146.

The author of this little volume modestly waives all claim to the title of poet, and thus disarms severer criticism. His book, nevertheless, has the merit of being lively and agreeable, which is more than can be said of many more pretentious volumes of verse. His pieces are mostly of the kind called verses of society, a variety whose range is all the way up from Concanen to Horace. It is enough, if they are only passable; but good specimens are easy and sprightly,—their philosophy not worldly precisely, but man-of-the-worldly,—their morality an elegant Poor-Richardism,—their poetry whatever may be reached by the fancy and understanding. Sometimes, if the author have been lucky enough, like Béranger, to have enjoyed low company, his verses will gather a richer tone, his wit will broaden into humor, his sentiment deepen to hearty good-nature, and his worldliness ripen into a genuine humanity.

To embody primeval sentiments, to deal with transcendent passions, and to idealize those fatal moods by which not individuals merely, but races, are possessed, those tidal ebbs and flows which, for want of a better name, we call the Spirit of the Age,—this is a gift whose return among us we do not look for with as much certainty as that of shad and salmon, but meanwhile we are not too nice to be pleased with verses that express average thoughts and feelings gracefully and with a dash of sentiment. It is a vast deal wiser and better to express neatly, in language that is not alien to the concerns of every day, feelings we have really had, than to maunder about what we think we ought to have felt in a diction that has no more to do with our ordinary habits of thought and expression than Monmouth with Macedon. The contrast of matter and manner in much of our current verse is such as to remind one of the notes which are sometimes sent to their sweethearts by schoolboys, who cut their fingers (not too deep) that they may asseverate the eternal constancy of the three-weeks'-vacation in that solemn fluid proper to contracts with the Evil One.

It is pleasant to meet with one who is able to say a natural thing in a natural way, as Mr. Rice has shown that he can do. There is a very agreeable mingling of feeling and fun in his lighter pieces, rising into real grace and lyric fancy in some of them, such as "New Year's Eve" and "The Revisit."

A Voyage down the Amoor; with a Land Journey through Siberia, and Incidental Notices of Manchooria, Kamschatka, and Japan. By PERRY McDONOUGH COLLINS, United States Commercial Agent at the Amoor River, New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1860. pp. 390.

This is a very amusing book. The introductory part of it, in which the author recounts his adventures in Siberia before setting out on his expedition down the Amoor, is full of bad taste, bad rhetoric, and bad grammar. If we had read no farther, we should have thought that a more unfit personage than this gentleman with the monumental name could not have been chosen for any public service.

Mr. Perry McDonough Collins gives us the bill of fare of gentlemen's tables at which he dined, tells us how much and what kinds of wine were "drank," and sometimes winds up his account of the feast with a compliment to the "amiable and interesting" family of his host. Mr. Egouminoff's dinner, he tells us, "was excellent, with several kinds of wine, closing with Champagne. We had also the pleasure of the company of Mrs. E. and her daughter, and several other guests, besides a handsome widow." There is something charmingly naïf in thus throwing in the company as a succedaneum to the dinner, and carefully segregating the widow from the rest of mankind as a distinct species.

Mr. Collins also reports for us carefully the orations he made on various festive occasions,—a piece of very proper economy, since they were delivered in English to an audience of Russians. He confesses that it is not the custom to make after-dinner-speeches in Siberia, which proves that the Russian Government has neglected at least one opportunity of adding to the terrors of a Penal Colony. At one dinner he had the satisfaction of making three of these terrible mistakes. He responds to the health of General Mouravieff, Governor of the Province, to that of President Buchanan, and to that of "our guests." We should like to have been present at this display, provided we could have been speech-proofed, like the Russians in their ignorance of English. It was certainly a proud day for America, and the bird of our country will be glad that the eloquence has been carefully saved by Mr, Collins for the good of his compatriots.

After this multiloquent festival, the Siberian merchants, naturally exasperated, seized upon Mr. Collins, and an unhappy countryman of his who was present, and tossed them after the fashion of Sancho Panza. "This sport," adds our traveller, gravely, "is called in Russian podkeedovate, or tossing-up, and is considered a mark of great respect. General Mouravieff told me, after our return, that he had had podkeedovate performed upon him in the same room." The General must be something of a humorist.

Mr. Collins, however, has a more astounding incident to relate than even the respectful tossing-up of a general in the army and governor of Siberia by a party of provincial shopkeepers. In returning from an excursion, Mr. Collins had the ill-luck to lose a horse.

"The death of that horse," he says, "was a singular circumstance. We were galloping rapidiy and were approaching the station, when the animal dropped as if struck by lightning. We were in such rapid motion upon the smooth ice of the river, that, though several yards from the stopping-point, the other horses kept on, dragging the dead horse, nor did the driver attempt to stop them, but seemed determined to reach the station at full speed. As soon as we had stopped, I got out and examined the body. It was as stiff as a poker and stirred not a muscle, the eyes being cold and glassy. The fact is, the horse must have been dead before he fell, and his muscular action was kept up some time after life had departed." (p. 89.)

We do not remember to have met with a more wonderful example of the force of habit.

After Mr. Collins is fairly embarked, however, on his voyage of exploration, his book becomes more interesting. He shows himself a thoroughly good-humored, observant, and intelligent traveller. If, in the earlier pages of his journal, he is indiscreetly communicative as to the good cheer he enjoyed, in the later ones he does not waste time in grumbling at discomforts and lenten fare. He observes minutely and describes well all that he sees along the great river,—the people, the productions, the scenery, and the vegetation. He gives us a lively impression of the capabilities of the country, and of the results which are to follow the introduction of steam-navigation on the Amoor. Like a true American, he believes in the manifest destiny of Russia, and looks forward to the not distant time when, with a kind of retributive justice, the Muscovite is to swallow up the Manchew, as Charles Lamb used to call him. Already American merchants have established themselves at the mouth of the Amoor, and, unless Mr. Collins is oversanguine, a great trade is to spring up between the Californians and their opposite neighbors on the eastern coast of Asia.

On the whole, we take leave of Mr. Collins with a feeling of decided esteem for his genuine good qualities, and can safely commend his book as both lively and instructive.

Revolutions in English History. By ROBERT VAUGHAN, D.D. Vol. I. Revolutions of Race. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1860. pp. xvi., 663.

We do not think that Dr. Vaughan has been happy in his choice of a title for his book. It is more properly an introduction to the study of English history, than the limitation of the title would seem to import. The Saxon occupation of England is, perhaps, the only event which may fitly be called a revolution of race. The volume, however, is a solid and sensible one. Dr. Vaughan is not a brilliant writer; but brilliancy is not always the best quality in an historian, for it as often leaves readers dazzled as taught. A decidedly matter-of-fact turn of mind prevents his being a theorist, so that he does not formulate characters and events in accordance with some fixed preconception. His learning seems sometimes limited by what was accessible to him at the least expense of study,—as, for example, in his account of the religion of the Teutonic races, where he depends almost altogether on Mallet. His style is generally clear and unpretending, never remarkable for any rhetorical merit, sometimes disfigured by inaccuracies, which, had they occurred in an American book, would have been attributed by English critics to the low grade of our culture and civilization. In one instance he is guilty of the barbarous cockneyism of using the word party as an equivalent for person. He speaks of the Roman Wall as having been kept perpetually guarded when he means constantly, of border land as "separating between" two races, and of ornaments made "from jet."

Though we do not find in Dr. Vaughan the fascinating qualities which we have been spoiled into expecting by some recent English and French examples of historical composition, we can give him the praise of being fair-minded, sensible, and clear. If he anywhere shows prejudice, it is in his somewhat depreciatory estimate of the Normans, whom he rather gratuitously supposes to have acquired civilization and the love of art from the Saxons,—a supposition at war with probability as well as fact. If anything distinguished the Norman from the Saxon, it was his aptitude for appreciating beauty as distinguished from use,—an aptitude on which French influence could not have been lost before the Conquest of England. The Normans in Sicily certainly had not had the advantage of Saxon training in aesthetics, and the poetry and architecture of the Normans in England were no reproduction of Saxon models.