That is the heart for watchman true Waiting to see what GOD will do, As o'er the Church the gathering twilight falls : His thoughts to Heaven the steadier rise: If only he be faithful found, When from the east th' eternal morning moves. The REV. JOHN KEBLE (1792-1866), author of The Christian Year, was the son of a country clergyman, vicar of Coln-St-Aldwynds, Gloucestershire. At the early age of fifteen he was elected a scholar of Corpus Christi, Oxford, and having distinguished himself both in classics and mathematics was in 1811 elected to a Fellowship at Oriel. He was for some years tutor and examiner at Oxford, but afterwards lived with his father, and assisted him as curate. The publication of The Christian Year, and the marvellous success of the work, brought its author prominently before the public, and in 1833 he was appointed professor of poetry at Oxford. About the same time the Tractarian movement began, having originated in a sermon on national apostacy, preached by Keble in 1833; Newman became leader of the party, and after he had gone over to the Church of Rome, Keble was chief adviser and counsellor. He also wrote some of the more important Tracts, inculcating, as has been said, deep submission to authority, implicit reverence for Catholic tradition, firm belief in the divine prerogatives of the priesthood, the real nature of the sacraments, and the danger of independent speculation.' Such principles, fettering the understanding, are never likely to be popular, but they were held by Keble with saint-like sincerity and simplicity of character. In 1835, the poetical divine became vicar of Hursley, near Winchester. In 1846, he published a second volume of poems, Lyra Innocentium, and he was author of a Life of Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, and editor of an edition of Hooker's Works. The poetry of Keble is characterised by great delicacy and purity both of thought and expression. It is occasionally prosaic and feeble, but always wears a sort of apostolic air, and wins its way to the heart. And fondly loved and cherished: they are flown And night is strangely mute! the hymnings high- The very streams And by gifted eyes were seen The seasons came In bloom or blight, in glory or in shade; honourable mention. ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM. The REV. FRANCIS WRANGHAM (1769-1843), rector of Hunmanby, Yorkshire, and archdeacon of Chester, in 1795 wrote a prize-poem on the Restoration of the Jews, and translations in verse. He was the author of four Seaton prize-poems on sacred subjects, several sermons, an edition of Langhorne's Plutarch, and dissertations on the British empire in the East, on the translation of the Scriptures into the oriental languages, &c. His occasional translations from the Greek and Latin, and his macaronic verses, or sportive classical effusions among his friends, were marked by fine taste and felicitous adaptation. He continued his favourite studies to the close of his long life, and was the ornament and delight of the society in which he moved. HENRY FRANCIS CARY. The REV. HENRY FRANCIS CARY (1772-1844), by his translation of Dante, has earned a high and lasting reputation. He was early distinguished as a classical scholar at Christ's Church, Oxford, and was familiar with almost the whole range of Italian, French, and English literature. In 1805 he published the Inferno of Dante in blank verse, and an entire translation of the Divina Commedia, in the same measure, in 1814. He afterwards translated the Birds of Aristophanes, and the Odes of Pindar, and wrote short memoirs in continuation of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, which, with lives of the early French poets, appeared anonymously in the London Magazine. For some years Mr Cary held the office of assistant-librarian in the British Museum, and enjoyed a pension of £200 per annum. A Memoir of this amiable scholar was written by his son, the Rev. H. Cary, and published in 1847. First brought into notice by the prompt and strenuous exertions of Coleridge, Mr Cary's version of the Florentine poet passed through four editions during the life of the translator. We subjoin a specimen. Francesca of Rimini. In the second circle of hell, Dante, in his vision,' witnesses the punishment of carnal sinners, who are tossed about ceaselessly in the dark air by furious winds. Amongst these he meets with Francesca of Rimini, who, with her lover Paolo, was put to death. The father of the unfortunate lady was the friend and protector of Dante. I began: 'Bard! willingly I would address those two together coming, O gracious creature, and benign! who goest Of whatsoe'er to hear or to discourse That, as thou see'st, he yet deserts me not. Ugolini and his Sons in the Tower of Famine. During the contests between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, in 1289, Count Ugolini with two of his sons and two grandsons, were confined by Archbishop Ruggieri in a tower; the tower was locked, and the key thrown into the Arno, and all food was withheld from them. In a few days, they died of hunger. Dante describes the future punishment of Ugolini and the cardinal as being 'pent in one hollow of the ice. The awful deaths in the tower are thus related by the ghost of the count. A small grate Within that mew, which for my sake the name Now had they wakened; and the hour drew near 1 The place to which murderers are doomed. 2 One of the knights of the Round Table, and the lover of Ginevra, or Guinever, celebrated in romance. 3 A fine representation of this scene in marble formed part of the Manchester Exhibition of 1857. It was from the collection of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, and was executed by Mr A. Munro, sculptor, a young artist cut off prematurely by death in 1871. I wept not so all stone I felt within. Came out upon the world. When a faint beam I did it through desire of feeding, rose O' the sudden, and cried: 'Father, we should grieve A select descriptive passage of Dante, imitated by Gray (first line in the Elegy), and by Byron (Don Juan, canto iii. 108), is thus rendered by Cary: Now was the hour that wakens fond desire WILLIAM STEWART ROSE. Το WILLIAM STEWART ROSE (1775-1843), the translator of Ariosto, and a man of fine talent and accomplishments, was the second son of Mr George Rose, Treasurer of the Navy, &c. After his education at Eton and Cambridge, Mr Rose was introduced to public life, and he obtained the appointment of reading-clerk to the House of Lords. His tastes, however, were wholly literary. gratify his father, he began A Naval History of the Late War, vol. i., 1802, which he never completed. His subsequent works were a translation of the romance of Amadis de Gaul, 1803; a translation, in verse from the French of Le Grand, of Partenopex de Blois, 1807; Letters to Henry Hallam, Esq., from the North of Italy, 2 vols., 1819; and a translation of the Animali Parlanti of Casti, 1819, to which he prefixed introductory addresses at each canto to his friends Ugo Foscolo, Frere, Walter Scott, &c. In 1823, he published a condensed translation of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, and also commenced his version of the Orlando Furioso, which was completed in 1831. The latter is the happiest of Mr Rose's translations; it has wonderful spirit, as well as remarkable fidelity, both in form and meaning, to the original. The translator dedicated his work in a graceful sonnet to Sir Walter Scott, 'who,' he says, persuaded me to resume the work, which had been thrown aside, on the ground that such labour was its own reward:' 6 Scott, for whom Fame a gorgeous garland weaves, And if some fruit, however dwindled, fill The doubtful ear, though scant the crop and bareAh, how unlike the growth of Tuscan hill, Where the glad harvest springs behind the sharePeace be to thee! who taught me that to till Was sweet, however paid the peasant's care. Besides his translations, Mr Rose was author of a volume of poems, entitled The Crusade of St Louis, &c., 1810; and Rhymes, a small volume of epistles to his friends; tales, sonnets, &c. He was also an occasional contributor to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. Ill-health latterly compelled Mr Rose to withdraw in a great measure from society; but in every event and situation of life,' says his biographer, Mr Townsend,' whether of sorrow or sickness, joy or pleasure, the thoughtful politeness of a perfect gentleman never forsook him.'* And thus he became the best translator of Ariosto, one of whose merits was that even in jesting he never forgot that he was a gentleman, while in his most extraordinary narratives and adventures there are simple and natural touches of feeling and expression that command sympathy. The ottava rima stanza of Ariosto was followed by Rose -Hook in his translation adopted the heroic couplet-with marvellous success. As a specimen, we give two stanzas: Let him make haste his feet to disengage, Nor lime his wings, whom Love has made a prize; And albeit some may shew themselves more sage Various are love's effects; but from one source WILLIAM TAYLOR. One of our earliest translators from the German was WILLIAM TAYLOR of Norwich (1765-1836). In 1796 appeared his version of Burger's Lenore. Before the publication of this piece, Mrs Barbauld who had been the preceptress of Taylor-read it to a party in Edinburgh at which Walter Scott was such that he was induced to attempt a version was present. The impression made upon Scott himself, and though inferior in some respects to that of Taylor, Scott's translation gave promise of poetical power and imagination. Mr Taylor afterwards made various translations from the German, which he collected and published in 1830 under the title of A Survey of German Poetry. * Memoir prefixed to Bohn's edition of the Orlando Furioso, 1858. 'Mr Taylor,' says a critic in the Quarterly Review (1843), must be acknowledged to have been the first who effectually introduced the modern poetry and drama of Germany to the English reader, and his versions of the Nathan of Lessing, the Iphigenia of Goethe, and Schiller's Bride of Messina, are not likely to be supplanted, though none of them are productions of the same order with Coleridge's Wallenstein. In 1843 an interesting Memoir of Taylor, containing his correspondence with Southey, was published in two volumes, edited by J. W. Robberds, Norwich. THE EARL OF ELLESMERE. In 1823 this nobleman (1800-1857) published a translation of Goethe's Faust and Schiller's Song of the Bell. This volume was followed in 1824 by another, Translations from the German, and Original Poems. In 1830 he translated Hernani, or the Honour of a Castilian, a tragedy from the French of Victor Hugo. To the close of his life, this accomplished nobleman continued to adapt popular foreign works-as Pindemonte's Donna Charitea, Michael Beer's Paria, the Henri Trois of Dumas, &c. He translated and re-arranged Schimmer's Siege of Vienna, and edited the History of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon (two vols., 1851). In 1839 he undertook a voyage to the Mediterranean in his yacht, and on his return home printed for private circulation The Pilgrimage, Mediterranean Sketches, &c., which were afterwards published with illustrations. A dramatic piece, Bluebeard, acted with success at private theatricals, also proceeded from his pen. He occasionally contributed an article to the Quarterly Review, and took a lively interest in all questions affecting literature and art. Of both he was a munificent patron. His lordship, by the death of his father, the first Duke of Sutherland, in 1833, succeeded to the great Bridgewater estates in Lancashire, and to his celebrated gallery of pictures, valued at £150,000. He was raised to the peerage as Earl of Ellesmere in 1846. The translations of this nobleman are characterised by elegance and dramatic spirit, but his Faust is neither very vigorous nor very faithful. His original poetry is graceful, resembling, though inferior, that of Rogers. We subjoin one specimen, in which Campbell seems to have been selected as the model. His kindred are not near The fatal knell to hear, They can but weep when the deed 'tis done; They would shriek, and wail, and pray: That his friends are far away— Yes, in his mute despair, The faithful hound is there, He has reached his master's side with a spring. Till its ebbing pulse hath fled, What art, or lure, or wile, That one can now beguile From the side of his master and friend? He has gnawed his cord in twain; To the arm which strives in vain To repel him, he will strain To the end. The tear-drop who can blame? Though it dim the veteran's aim, And each breast along the line heave the sigh. For 'twere cruel now to save; And together in that grave, The faithful and the brave, Let them lie. In 1820-22, THOMAS MITCHELL (1783-1845) published translations in verse of Aristophanes, in which the sense and spirit of the 'Old Comedian' were admirably rendered. Mr Mitchell also edited some of the plays of Sophocles, and superintended the publication of some of the Greek works which issued from the Oxford Clarendon press. VISCOUNT STRANGFORD (1780-1855), long the British ambassador at Lisbon and other foreign courts, in 1803 published a version of Poems from the Portuguese of Camoens, with remarks on his Life and Writings. The translation was generally condemned for its loose and amatory character, but some of the lyrical pieces have much beauty. A sarcastic notice of Strangford will be found in Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and Moore dedicated to him one of his finest epistles. To the last, the old nobleman delighted in literary and antiquarian pursuits, and was much esteemed. SCOTTISH POETS. ROBERT BURNS. After the publication of Fergusson's poems, in a collected shape, in 1773, there was an interval of about thirteen years, during which no writer of eminence arose in Scotland who attempted to excel in the native language of the country. The intellectual taste of the capital ran strongly in favour of metaphysical and critical studies; but the Doric muse was still heard in the rural districts linked to some popular air, some local occurrence or favourite spot, and was much cherished by the lower and middle classes of the people. In the summer of 1786, ROBERT BURNS, the Shakspeare of Scotland, issued his first volume from the obscure press of Kilmarnock, and its influence was immediately felt, and is still operating on the whole imaginative literature of the kingdom.* Burns was then in his twentyseventh year, having been born in the parish of Alloway, near Ayr, on the 25th of January 1759. His father was a poor farmer, a man of sterling worth and intelligence, who gave his son what education he could afford. The whole, however, was but a small foundation on which to erect the miracles of genius! Robert was taught English well, and 'by the time he was ten or eleven years of age, he was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. He was also taught to write, had a fortnight's French, and was one summer quarter at land-surveying. He had a few books, among which were the Spectator, Pope's works, Allan Ramsay, and a collection of English Songs. Subsequently-about his twenty-third year-his reading was enlarged with the important addition of Thomson, Shenstone, Sterne, and Mackenzie. Other standard works soon followed. As the advantages of a liberal education were not within his reach, it is scarcely to be regretted that his library was at first so small. What books he had, he read and studied thoroughly-his attention was not distracted by a multitude of volumes-and his mind grew up with original and robust vigour. It is impossible to contemplate the life of Burns at this time, without a strong feeling of affectionate admiration and respect. His manly integrity of character-which, as a peasant, he guarded with jealous dignity-and his warm and true heart, elevate him, in our conceptions, almost as much as the native force and beauty of his poetry. We see him in the veríest shades of obscurity, toiling, when a mere youth, 'like a galley-slave,' to support his virtuous parents and their household, yet grasping at every opportunity of acquiring knowledge from men and books-familiar with the history of his country, and loving its very soil -worshipping the memory of Scotland's ancient patriots and defenders, and exploring the scenes and memorials of departed greatness-loving also the simple peasantry around him, 'the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers.' Burning with a desire to do something for old Scotland's sake, with a heart beating with warm and generous emotions, a strong and clear understanding, and a spirit abhorring all meanness, insincerity, and oppression, Burns, in his early days, might have furnished the subject for a great and instructive moral poem. The true elements of poetry were in his life, as in his writings. The wild stirrings of his ambition-which he so nobly compared to the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave'-the precocious maturity of his passions and his intellect, his manly frame, that led him to fear no competitor at the plough, and his exquisite sensibility and tenderness, that made him weep over even the destruction of a daisy's flower or a mouse's nest-these are all moral contrasts or blendings that seem to belong to the spirit of romantic poetry. His writings, as we now know, were but the fragments of a great mind-the hasty outpourings of a full heart and intellect. After he had become the fashionable wonder and idol of his day-soon to be cast into cold neglect and poverty !-some errors and frailties threw a shade on the noble and affecting image, but its higher lineaments were never destroyed. The column was defaced, not broken; and now that the mists of prejudice have cleared away, its just proportions and symmetry are recognised with pride and gratitude by his admiring countrymen. Burns came as a potent auxiliary or fellowworker with Cowper, in bringing poetry into the channels of truth and nature. There was only about a year between the Task and the Cotter's Saturday Night. No poetry was ever more instantaneously or universally popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland. A contemporary, Robert Heron, who then resided in Galloway, contiguous to Ayrshire, states that 'old and young, high and low, learned and ignorant, were alike transported with the poems, and that even ploughmen and maid-servants would gladly have bestowed the wages they earned, if they but might procure the works of Burns.' The volume, indeed, contained matter for all minds for the lively and sarcastic, the wild and the thoughtful, the poetical enthusiast and the man of the world. So eagerly was the book sought • The edition consisted of 600 copies. A second was published after, that, where copies of it could not be in Edinburgh in April 1787, as many as 2800 copies being subscribed for by 1500 individuals. After his unexampled popu- obtained, many of the poems were transcribed larity in Edinburgh, Burns took the farm of Ellisland, near and sent round in manuscript among admiring Dumfries, married his 'bonny Jean,' and entered upon his new occupation at Whitsunday 1788. He had obtained-what he circles. The subsequent productions of the poet anxiously desired as an addition to his means as a farmer-an did not materially affect the estimate of his appointment in the Excise; but the duties of this office, and his own convivial habits, interfered with his management of the farm, powers formed from his first volume. His life and he was glad to abandon it. In 1791 he removed to the town was at once too idle and too busy for continof Dumfries, subsisting entirely on his situation in the Excise, uous study; and, alas! it was too brief for the which yielded £70 per annum, with an occasional windfall from smuggling seizures. His great ambition was to be a supervisor, full maturity and development of his talents. from which preferment it was said his political heresies' excluded Where the intellect predominates equally with the him; but it has lately been proved, that if any rebuke was administered to the poet, it must have been verbal, for no censure imagination-and this was the case with Burnsagainst him was recorded in the excise books. He was on the list increase of years generally adds to the strength for promotion, and had he lived six months longer he would, in the and variety of the poet's powers; and we have no ordinary routine of the service, have been promoted. In 1793, Burns published a third edition of his Poems, with the addition of doubt that, in ordinary circumstances, Burns, like Tam & Shanter and other pieces composed at Ellisland. A Dryden, would have improved with age, and fourth edition, with some corrections, was published in 1794, and this seems to have been the last authorised edition in the poet's added greatly to his fame, had he not fallen at so lifetime. He died at Dumfries on the 21st of July 1796, aged early a period, before his imagination could be thirty-seven years and about six months. The story of the poet's enriched with the riper fruits of knowledge and unnecessary. The valuable edition of Dr Currie appeared in 1800, experience. He meditated a national drama; and realised a sum of £1400 for Burns's widow and family. It but we might have looked with more confidence contained the correspondence of the poet, and a number of songs, for a series of tales like Tam o' Shanter, which contributed to Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, and Thomson's Select Scottish Melodies. The editions of Burns since 1800-with the elegy on Captain Matthew Hendercould with difficulty be ascertained; they were reckoned a few son, one of the most highly finished and most precious of his works-was produced in his happy life is so well known, that even this brief statement of dates seems years ago at about a hundred. His poems circulate in every shape, and have not yet 'gathered all their fame.' |