translation. The wild vagaries of the Mayday-night's scene are also sadly curtailed; and the interlude of Oberon and Titania's bridal is entirely left out. This last omission is particularly injudicious, because the crowd and tumult of contradictory images, of which so large a portion is thus struck from the page, must have been expressly designed and congregated by the poet, in order to deceive the reader's fancy, and bewilder so thoroughly all sense of the lapse of time as to render tolerable the otherwise abrupt transition from the commencement of poor Margaret's errors to the consummation of all her earthly woes. Even in the plainest and most perspicuous parts of the main action and dialogue, however, we could point out many instances where his lordship has retrenched, in the total absence, according to our notion, of any sufficient reason for retrenchment. For example: why should we lose the savage sarcasm of the fiend, when, deriding all intellectual pursuits, and extolling the substantial, as he chooses to represent them, pleasures of the senses, he exclaims to the sorely puzzled Doctor—? 'Yes-in my mind your man of speculation Is wise and wise too is yon elfstruck beast, While all around him, north, south, west, and east, or why should the scene which represents the citizens rejoicing A merrier meeting ne'er was seen Beneath our linden tree,' &c. In our opinion a careful revision is all that is wanted to make Lord F.'s version as satisfactory as a whole, as the specimens we are about to quote will prove it to be happy in parts; and we trust that, in the favour with which his work, in its present state, has been received, the author will permit himself to find not only the reward of the talent he has already exerted, but a stimulus for his industry. As all the world is acquainted with Madame de Staël's Germany, and Schlegel's Lectures on the Literature of the Drama, we may, we presume, take it for granted, that anything in the shape of a regular analysis of the Faust' would be superfluous in this place. Our readers cannot have forgotten the fine art with which Goethe interrupts his hero, when the vexed man of speculation' is about to seek refuge from all his troubles in a voluntary death. 'Thou lonely flask, with reverential awe, In thee I venerate the art of man. Essence *. Essence of painless rest, untortured death,* And the broad sun's last rays to distant shores invite.' Faust then takes down a goblet-and is checked for a moment by the train of recollections which the sight of that old domestic ornament' calls up. 'I have not thought on thee this many a year. Oft at my father's feast, the rosy wine In thy transparent brightness learnt to shine, Well I remember the accustomed rite When the blithe comrades pledged thee through the night,' &c. But he recovers his resolution—and pouring the poison out of the cup exclaims 'In thee the troubles of my soul I cast, Hail the blest drops and drain them to the last.'† At this moment the effective interruption occurs: Faust sets the cup to his lips, and at that instant the church bells begin to ring. It is Easter morning, and the anthem is heard in the distance.The sequel is skilfully rendered: 'What thrilling sounds, what music's choral swell Arrests the hand which death but now defied? Say, you do wake for Him who came to save "I hear your tidings, would that I believed! I dare not lift my thoughts towards the spheres, Revives the scenes of sinless youth again, Lord F. Gower would improve his version by transposing these two lines. The original runs literally, Thou essence of all that is soft in slumber, thou extract of all that is delicately deadly.' The translator does not observe that this takes place just as the first rays of the dawn touch the window-whence the propriety of the original, Be this my last draught with my whole soul dedicated as a high festival-offering to the morning.' When, When, on the stillness of the sabbath-day, Heaven in that peal seem'd pouring from above, Whilst saints might wish with joy like mine to pray. Impell'd me from the haunts of man; While tears of christian fervour ran. Arrests my strides, and checks me at the last. vol. i. p. 43. Faust, having escaped this temptation, wanders forth into the fields with his pupil Wagner, and contemplates the universal festival. This also is spiritedly given; 'Turn round, and, from this hillock's height, See, from the jaws of yonder gate, Shed by the church's shadowy height, See, on the stream, how thick they float, I hail, in yonder rout and coil, The short-lived heaven of those who toil; And am the man I seem to be.'-vol. i. p. 54. We cannot afford room for the scenes in which Mephistopheles, in the shape of a hound, gains admission to Faust's chamber; at length assumes a human form; and, after a variety of conversation, induces the unhappy victim to seal the compact with his blood blood-the compact which renders him, in so far as his own act can do so, the slave of the juggling fiend. We pass over also the debauchery of the drinking cellar, and come to the scene with which the main interest of the drama opens. Faust, now reinvested by magic art with all the graces of youth, sees, and is enamoured of Margaret-the most charming of all the creations of the poet's genius. He speaks to her-she repels him like a modest maiden, and passes on. At that instant Mephistopheles enters. 'FAUST. Hear:-you must win her; no delay! MEPH. Win whom? FAUST. But now she past this way. MEPH. Oh! her. The priest to whom she came to pray I listen'd by his chair the while. The monk could scarcely send her thence Such are beyond my mischief's sphere. Who, as he walk'd the garden, thought And so much mischief there he wrought- We part at twelve-and part for ever. MEPH. Think of the nature of the case : MEPH. You talk this like a Frenchman born! Have sometimes stoop'd, and sometimes mounted, FAUST. Without all this I crave and would obtain. MEPH. My warning must be clear and plain. This fort, 'tis not the devil's fault, FAUST. And see her-clasp her? It is too soon: not yet. FAUST. Seek me some gift, some jewel richly set. [FAUST departs. MEPH. Presents so soon!-he'll not be long in wooing.' &c. -vol. i. pp. 150-154. The next scene presents us with A small and neat Apartment? MARGARET is discovered plaiting and binding up her hair;' and her soliloquy is: 'I would give something to discover Who 'twas that spoke so like a lover. Besides, he would not else have been so bold. MEPH. (to FAUST) Come in, but softly ply your feet. MEPH. Few maidens' chambers are so neat. I feel the breeze of mental health, Where calm content and order dwell: [She goes in. [Throws himself into a large arm-chair. Have clung the hopes of many a parent's race! |