Bayard Taylor.

Mr. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878), for some years before his death American ambassador in Berlin, wrote Poems and Ballads, Poems of the Orient, and several other works in both prose and poetry, but his principal glory will always be his unequalled translation of Goethe's Faust, of which the first part appeared in the autumn of 1870, and the second part in the spring of 1871.

Poetical translation is never easy, and previous translators of Faust, while indulging in a certain periphrastic diffuseness, and allowing themselves considerable latitude both in diction and metre, found they had undertaken a very serious task. But Mr. Taylor aspired to render the exact meaning, while he preserved the form and rhythm of the original. "It is useless to say, he remarks, "that the naked meaning is independent of the form; on the contrary, the form contributes essentially to the fulness of the meaning." Describing the method he had followed in his translation, he says: "The feminine and dactylic rhymes, which have been for the most part omitted by all metrical translators, except Mr. Brooks, are indispensable. The characteristic tone of many passages would be nearly lost without them. They give spirit and grace to the dialogue, point to the aphoristic portions (especially in the second part), and an even-changing music to the lyrical passages. The English language, though not so rich as the German in such rhymes, is less deficient than is generally supposed. The difficulty to be overcome is one of construction rather than of the vocabulary." We regret that our limited space forbids us to quote largely from this admirable translation, but we give a few passages as specimens, merely reminding the reader how difficult it is to judge of such a work by fragments. The two last stanzes of the Dedication (Sie hören nicht die folgenden Gesänge, etc.) are rendered by Mr. Taylor as follows:

They hear no longer these succeeding_measures,
The souls to whom my earlier songs I sang:
Dispersed the friendly troop with all its pleasures,
And still, alas, the echoes first that rang!
I bring the unknown multitude my treasures;
Their very plaudits give my heart a pang,

And those beside, whose joy my song so flattered,
If still they live, wide through the world are scattered.

And grasps me now a long-unwonted yearning
For that serene and solemn Spirit-land:

My song, to faint Aeolian murmurs turning,
Sways like a harp-string by the breezes fanned.
I thrill and tremble; tear on tear is burning,
And the stern heart is tenderly unmanned.
What I possess, I see far distant lying,
And what I lost grows real and undying.

We pass on to the passage beginning with: Nun komm' herab, krystallne reine Schale, when Faustus resolves to put an end to his existence:

And now come down, thou cup of crystal clearest!
Fresh from thine ancient cover thou appearest,
So many years forgotten to my thought!
Thou shon'st at old ancestral banquets cheery,
The solemn guests thou madest merry,
When one thy wassail to the other brought.
The rich and skilful figures o'er thee wrought,
The drinker's duty, rhyme-wise to explain them,
Or in one breath below the mark to drain them,
From many a night of youth my memory caught.
Now to a neighbour shall I pass thee never,
Nor on thy curious art to test my wit endeavour;
Here is a juice whence sleep is swiftly born.
It fills with browner flood thy crystal hollow;

I chose, prepared it; thus I follow,

With all my soul the final drink I swallow,
A solemn festal cup, a greeting to the morn!

The unversified scene, near the end of the first part, in which Faustus bitterly reproaches Mephistopheles with concealing from him the imprisonment and misery of Margaret, is finely translated in a rhythmical prose which approaches equally near the original. To the cynical reply of Mephistopheles: Sie ist die erste nicht, Faustus makes the indignant rejoinder (Hund, abscheuliches Unthier!):

Dog! abominable monster! Transform him, thou Infinite Spirit! transform the reptile again into his dog-shape, in which it pleased him often at night to scamper on before me, to roll himself at the feet of the unsuspecting wanderer, and hang upon his shoulders when he fell! Transform him again into his favourite likeness, that he may crawl upon his belly in the dust before me, that I may trample him, the outlawed, under foot! Not the first! O woe! woe, which no human soul can grasp, that more than one being should sink into the depths of this misery, that the first, in its writhing death-agony under the eyes of the Eternal Forgiver, did not expiate the guilt of all others! The misery of this single one pierces to the very marrow of my life; and thou art calmly grinning at the fate of thousands!

We give Mr. Taylor's translation of the König in Thule:

In the still more arduous task of translating the second part of Faust, Mr. Taylor has acquitted himself with equal honour and success.

Three poems in drama-form have been written by Mr. Bayard Taylor: the Prophet, the Masque of the Gods, and Prince Deukalion; but they were never designed for representation on the stage.

W. C. Bryant.

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1879), one of the finest of the American poets, was the son of a physician in Cummington, a small place in Massachusetts. In his sixteenth year he entered Williams-College, and in 1815 settled in Great-Barrington, as a solicitor. But he soon

gave up the uncongenial practice of the law, went to New-York, and made literature his profession. His most successful poems are: Thanatopsis (the View of Death), written in his eighteenth year; the Ages, a poem in which he traces the gradual intellectual development of the human race; the Forest Hymn, Song of the Stars, the Fountain, and the Lapse of Time. Bryant particularly excels in painting American scenery; and his poetry is elegant, forcible, and remarkably lucid. Passing over such of his verses as have been often re-printed, and are well known, we select as a specimen his exquisite lines on

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines,

That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never trenched by spade; and flowers spring up
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet

To linger here, among the flitting birds,

And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set

With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades,
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old,

My thoughts go up the long dim path of years,
Back to the earliest days of Liberty.

O Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap

With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,
Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred
With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs

Are long with struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;

They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep,

And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,

Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound,
The links are shivered, and the prison walls
Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.

Thy birthright was not given by human hands:
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst draw
The earliest furrows on the mountain side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.

Oh! not yet

May'st thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by
Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,

And thou must watch and combat till the day

Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou rest

A while from tumult and the frauds of men,

These old and friendly solitudes invite

Thy visit. They, while yet the forest-trees

Were young upon the unviolated earth,

And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.

H. W. Longfellow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), the best known in Europe of all the American poets, was born at Portland, in the State of Maine. He studied at Bowdoin College, in which, a few years later, he obtained the chair of modern languages; but on the resignation of Mr. Ticknor, in 1835, he accepted the same professorship in Harvard College, Cambridge. His principal poetical works are: Voices of the Night (1839), Ballads and other Poems (1841), Poems on Slavery (1842), the Spanish Student, a play (1843), Evangeline (1847), the Golden Legend (1851), the Song of Hiawatha (1855), Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). His numerous translations from the Spanish, Italian,