Again, Mephistopheles is made to say to Mar tha: "Were you and he to change to-day, p. 176, and post, p. 119. What his lordship means by reinstating a widow's vacuum, I cannot pretend to explain. In the short scene of four pages, in which Mephistopheles tries to persuade Faust to bear testimony to the death of Martha's husband, three palpable mistranslations occur: "Wenn er nichts besser hat, so ist der Plan zerrissen." "I never heard a plan so void of sense." -p. 180. “Ja wenn man nichts ein wenig besser wüsste." "True, were I like yourself, and just as clever." p. 181. "Wer Recht behalten will und hat nur eine Zunge, Behält's gewiss. "Those who support the truth with simple tongues, The truth the best support."-p. 182. The words from which his lordship has deduced this axiom in favour of simplicity, really mean no more than that if a man be resolved on having the last word, and have but a tongue in his head, there is no preventing him; but it is his lordship's practice throughout, to translate idioms word for word by his dictionary, following, in this respect, the example of the Frenchman, who translated "I have other fish to fry," literally. d The love-scenes, as I have said already, are miserably curtailed; but enough remains to furnish the ordinary complement of mistakes. What can he mean by fixing such twaddle as this upon Goethe? MARGARET. "Yes, you are courteous, kind, and good, Have many a friend of many a nation, And more than all this, education. FAUST. Dulness, not knowledge, wrinkles oft the brow; MARGARET. How?" p. 185, and post, p. 126. She may well say, How? and I'm sure I can't tell her; but I think it would be better for both parties if Folly would leave Wisdom alone. The reader will find that there is nothing about gentle blood, education, dulness, wrinkles, or brows, in the original. His lordship has drawn exclusively upon his own resources for all these; unless the line about education was borrowed from "When land and money, all are spent, Then learning is most excellent." Which, by the by, was paraphrased by Porson, after swallowing the contents of the last jug upon the table: "When wine and brandy all are spent, Then table beer's most excellent." To the following passage I request the particular attention of those who have had the patience to accompany me thus far. Upon it I would willingly rest the whole question as to Lord F. Gower's capacity for feeling or translating the work. It is taken from the scene in which Margaret describes the care and anxiety her little sister occasioned her: "Before its birth my father was no more, It pined, and then recovered by degrees; And How sweet your task to rear the drooping flower! And yet it cost me many a weary hour : A passage, occupying twenty-three lines in the original, is here compressed into ten—a passage deriving its beauty exclusively from the number of minute particulars and the succession of delicate touches, by which the picture is worked up; even these ten lines, too, are defaced by an unpardonable mistake. Goethe, to suggest a natural reason for devolving the cares of a mother upon Margaret, makes her say that her mother was given up for lost and only recovered by degrees. His lordship transfers the lingering illness to the child. I can add nothing which will not suggest itself to every one on barely reading the literal translation, but I trust the Quarterly Reviewers will not commend his lordship for poetical feeling again. On this occasion, however, I cannot help thinking that he was repelled, as it were, from accuracy, by the same sort of feeling which sent Sir Robert Hazlewood of Hazlewood from the bar.* He could no more bring himself to write of wash-tubs than the worthy baronet to speak of tallow-candles. The passage in which Faust prays that, as it is his doom to be the ruin of Margaret, they may perish together and perish quickly,—is given with singular weakness (p. 198, and post, p. 140); and the reply of Mephistopheles “Geh' ein und tröste sie, du Thor!” literally "Get in and comfort her, thou fool,” "The first case, indeed, which was laid on my table, quite sickeued me; it respected a bargain, Sir, of tallow, between a butcher and a candle-maker; and I found it was expected that I should grease my mouth, not only with their vulgar names, but with all the technical terms and phrases, and peculiar language, of their dirty arts. Upon my honour, my good Sir, I have never been able to bear the smell of a tallow-candle since."- Guy Mannering. is thus translated: "Console her-tell her things may mend." I am pretty nearly tired of my task, though I feel it a duty to go through with it. I am therefore happy that I can pass over the celebrated answer of Faust when questioned about his religion. It will form the subject of a note to a forthcoming work by a friend of mine. At the end of the scene, however, there is a new reading of Freyer, which deserves notice. His lordship now translates it magister artium. In the scene preceding the death of Valentine, I find a very ludicrous mistake. There is a German superstition, not unknown in other countries, that a blue light hovers over places where treasure lies hid. In allusion to this, Faust says: "Rückt wohl der Schatz indessen in die Höh'? Den ich dorthinten flimmern seh'. His lordship translates this question and the reply as follows: FAUST. "Say, does yon taper's light reveal MEPHISTOPHeles. "It does: and shortly you shall share, * Post, p. 155, and see the note. |