From The Spectator. HIAWATHA IN LATIN.* THIS is not an age or country in which we can reasonably complain of the paucity of our sensations. Whether we seek new impressions or not, they overtake us almost beyond the limits of philosophic digestion. Nevertheless it may be said, as, indeed, we find, that the number and the novelty of the sensations required to overcome the listlessness of life will vary in different individuals. Where most men are spell-bound by the extraordinary rapidity of the events which surround them, a few minds may be so ardent, so versatile, and ethereal, as to be unsatisfied with a progression of daily discoveries in every branch of knowledge almost too numerous to record, and a frequency of political and social revolution, so far as we yet know, historically unparalleled. Nor can we quarrel with the preternatural mental activity of such highly gifted persons, beyond the involuntary astonishment which we may feel at their quaint feats of intellectual funambulism. In this respect the body throws much light upon the mind. Professor Blondin might, for aught we know, lead a blighted existence, but for the outlet he has found for his exuberant daring on the highest rope yet known. Boys will fly madly up half a dozen flights of stairs, for the pleasure of sliding down the banisters with a breathless rush, and a good thud at the end, where your ordinary man will grumble inwardly at the few steps he may have to ascend in order to consult a friend on important business. Yet, on the whole, we sympathize with the boys, and with those scholars who refresh their fevered wits with the like intellectual pranks. We should all be the better for a little more gymnastics. The Greeks of old must have drawn something of their unapproachable plasticity of mind from the elasticity of their bodies; and those glorious exercises which made their physical beauty the typical model for all future generations of sculptors, must have contributed something to the noble symmetry and miraculous versatility of their wits. The converse may not be true. A plastic mind may not argue a plastic body. Whether Professor Hiawatha rendered into Latin. By Francis William Newman, Professor of Latin in University College, London. Walton and Maberly, Upper Gower Street. Newman, for instance, the versatility of whose mental parts is truly astonishing, can also dance upon a rope, we cannot say. But surely, when apparently no longer satisfied with the common impossibility of translating Homer into English, he suddenly resolved upon the translation of Hiawatha, of all books in the world, into Latin, we may be permitted to say, with all due admiration for his genius, that we can only compare him with those interesting and philosophic yoùng experimentalists who, tired of things as they see them under ordinary circumstances, proceed to refresh and heighten their sensations by looking at the world, with head inverted, through their legs. Even in itself, Hiawatha was, perhaps, the most acrobatic experiment of modern literature. Mr. Longfellow, when he wrote Hiawatha, had fluttered over the realms of almost the whole of modern poetry, touching here, settling there, here culling, and there sipping, and dropping milk and honey in his random unlabored flight from place to place. But poets (do angels ?) tire of common milk and honey; and in the golden decline of his meridian, Mr. Longfellow craved a new craving, and loved a last love the passionate erratic love of a poetic second childhood. Very childlike is Hiawatha. The poet had plucked the leaves of the old rose tree one by one, and peered into the old Teutonic heart till Teutonia seemed to pall, when he was smitten with a desire to peep into the innocent secrets of a virgin breast, and chose the brown inarticulate bosom of the Indian muse. He peeped, and fell,-at her feet. We say nothing of the qualities of the lover on this his new love errand,-devotion, knight-errantry, genius, enthusiasm, the many-colored prattle of passionate last loves,-all were there. But surely no lovesick knight, of much amatory experience, in quest of new delights, ever dedicated such an epistle to the fairy of his dreams, or besieged her ravished and astonished ear, with such a sweet simplicity of strange surprising compliments, protestations, raptures, and visions of visionary charms. The " mirage of imaginative thought," the prismatic quaintnesses, queer conceits and infantine ingenuities, with which Mr. Longfellow invested the guttural, great masculinity of the old Red Indian is surely the eighth wonder of modern poetry. Cinderella in diamonds, Would I wed the fair Dacotah; That our tribes might be united, That old feuds might be forgotten, And old wounds be healed forever! Here, again, the Latin stands in much the same proportion to the original as Othello's speeches to Puck's. But if Mr. Longfellow wrought a miracle of poetry, Mr. Newman has out-Longfellowed Longfellow. The lovely chameleon babble of Hiawatha in the loud plain tongue of conquering Rome is not more wonderful than would be our nursery rhymes on the lips of Milton's Satan, or, if you please, Spenserian English turned into commercial Chinese. To have attempted to spin the iron bars of imperial Latin into a limp covering for Longfellow's most impalpable of impalpabilities, is almost as towering an is attempt at intellectual Herculeanism as the bodily efforts of the Titans to scale Ether with the heaping up of mountains. Compare for instance,— "I should answer, I should tell you; with the Latin version, Ego respondeo et tibi confirmo; Do not the English lines, in their tone and rhythm, apart from the mere ideas, somehow or other involuntarily call up the sweet, unconscious babble of a rosy, curlypated Saxon child, shrieking and paddling in its bath, with the bees buzzing in at the open window, and the swallows screaming in the morning sun? But all that the Latin suggests is a grim parody upon "Cæsar's Commentaries," or a stern lesson in military geography to his subalterns from some gruff old captain of Praetorians, with the added indefinable twang of a Franciscan monk. mouthing out "Immensitatibus." There is a military tramp, too, about the lines, like the feet of many legions. Not that Mr. Newman meant it—but when he touched the gong, it roared, instead of prattling. The infantine element is absolutely lost-an element which Mr. Longfellow piqued himself upon having fetched from the deepest depths of the Indian bosom, but which we shrewdly suspect he drew from Anglo-Saxon Christianity. Again compare,— "And the smoke rose slowly, slowly, rendered by "Per matutinam aëris quietem Lente lentus surrexit fumus, Unum primo nigredinis filum, Tum densior caerulescens vapor," where the Latin hobbles after the ethereal English much like a donkey with a cannon ball at its leg ogling a lovely unapproachable thistle. Nor can it be said that Mr. Newman labored under even the usual difficulties of prosody or vocabulary. For he has discarded all regular metre, and only consulted his own ear-while he has added many new words to the Latin language of his own creation, expressly coined for the present translation, such as atror," for blackness; "procor," to woo; "jejunare,” to fast. But although, upon the whole, we think Mr. Newman's attempt unsuccessful, we are far from wishing to convey that what he has attempted might have been better done. What we think, and for reasons which we lately detailed, is, that the translation was a Quixotic attempt to begin with, which Mr. Newman was perfectly warranted in attempting, if he pleased, but which, ab initio could not possibly succeed. In conclusion, we bid Mr. Newman farewell. We admire his talents, though we rather regret that he should not apply his very great powers to larger purposes. After such a feat of strength on his part, we can only lament that there seems so little left in the world likely to afford him a new sensation. Yet, perchance, there is one thing left. One hope remains. Let Mr. Newman only make up his mind to repair to the Amerlate Hiawatha back into the own native ican forests, and, having learnt Indian, transtongue of the Indians. Then, perhaps, he may consent to rest in peace upon the soft cushion of dearly earned repose. A DEATHLESS LOVE. Thy warbling in my ear. Oh, sing again that plaintive sang! Whare youth an' bairn-time meet. I roam through woods wi' berries rich, Beside love-hallowed rills. Sit owre beside me, winsome bairn, Wi' baith thy warm wee hauns press mine- Or would-but 'tis à sinfu' wish, We could not sit forever thus, Nor thou a child remain. There's nane I love like thee, dear bairn- Thou only wilt the village maids Thou only hast her brow and cheek, It's mony weary years since she They say there's music in the storm That hides the glens and burns; The angel o' a happy hame, The love o' early years: But he whase house the storm has wrecked, Wha e'er saw beauty in the drift Oh, wha, when fate wi' ruthless haun' Can breathe a grateful prayer, and feel Sae thought I when her een I closed, And aft, alas! wi' bitter heart The Books at e'en I ta'en. Nane think how sadly owre my head The lang, lang years hae passed; Sit near me, May; sit nearer yet! By sic a blithesome rill. My thoughts are wanderin', bairn. The veil The deepenin' autumn gloamin's turned My een grow heavy, May, and dim. It seems a sweeter voice than thine Lean kindly owre me, bairn, for nano -Blackwood's Magazine. DAVID WINGATE REDIVIVA. AH, is it in her eyes, The long years backward glide, Her ringlets dance on my cheek: And shall I hear her speak? O Love, so royally trustful, That your faith and fulfilment were one! O World, that doest so much! O God, that beholdest it done! She looks me clear in the face, Or was it in her hair, B POETRY.-Katie Lee and Willie Grey, 578. Sea-Gleams, 578. In the Moonlight, 578. A Gladstonian Distinction, 609. SHORT_ARTICLES.-Railway from Smyrna to Ephesus, 596. Researches on the Nature and Treatment of Diabetes, 591. Earthquakes in Fayal, 599, of Hannah Brooks, 603. Wonderful Discovery in Electricity, 603. Debt, 609. Inquest on the Body PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON. For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded free of postage. Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume. ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value. KATIE LEE AND WILLIE GREY. Two brown heads with tossing curls, They were standing where a brook, They had cheeks like cherries red; "Pretty Katie," Willie said,- Katie answered, with a laugh, Men are only boys grown tall, Is it strange that Willie said- "Will you trust me, Katie dear? All your burdens up the hill." Close beside a little brook, IN THE MOONLIGHT LONG AGO. (SONG FOR MUSIC.) You love me well, I know, wife, You hung your pretty head, then, I scarce heard what you said, then, -Mary Brotherton. SEA GLEAMS. 'TWAS a sullen summer day, Not as yet a white sail shimmered; In the hedge were roses, snowed Or blushed o'er by summer morn. Right and left grew fields of corn, Stretching greenly from the road; From the hay a breath was borne. Not of the wild roses twine, Not of young corn waving free, Not of clover fields, thought we; Only to that dim bright line, Looking, cried we, 1 "Tis the Sea !" In life's sullen summer day, Love's sweet roses, hope's young corn, (Yet, ah! scalded, too, and torn And at times, in life's dull day, Turn we, saying, "It is God!" |