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Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard

My sons-for they were with me-weep and ask
For bread

Now had they wakened; and the hour drew near
When they were wont to bring us food; the mind
Of each misgave him through his dream; and I
Heard, at its outlet underneath, locked up

The horrible tower: whence, uttering not a word,
I looked upon the visage of my sons.

I wept not: so all stone I felt within.

They wept and one, my little Anselm, cried:
Thou lookest so! father, what ails thee?' Yet
I shed no tear, nor answered all that day

Nor the next night, until another sun

Came out upon the world. When a faint beam
Had to our doleful prison made its way,

And in four countenances I descried

The image of my own, on either hard
Through agony I bit; and they who thought

I did it through desire of feeding, rose

O' the sudden, and cried: 'Father, we should grieve
Far less if thou wouldst eat of us; thou gavest
These weeds of miserable flesh we wear;
And do thou strip them off from us again.'
Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down
My spirit in stillness. That day and the next
We were all silent. Oh, obdurate earth!
Why open'dst not upon us? When we came
To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet
Outstretched did fling him, crying: Hast no help
For me, my father? There he died; and e'en
Plainly, as thou seest me, saw I the three
Fall one by one 'twixt the fifth day and sixth:
Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope
Over them all, and for three days aloud

Called on them who were dead. Then, fasting got
The mastery of grief.

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

In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart
Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell;
And pilgrim newly on his road with love
Thrills, if he hear the vesper-bell from far,
That seems to mourn for the expiring day,

WILLIAM STEWART ROSE.

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. Ilis tastes, however, were wholly literary. To 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 Fuiroso,' 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 :'

Scott, for whom Fame a gorgeous garland weaves,
Who what was scattered to the wasting wind,
As grain too coarse to gather or to bind,
Bad'st me collect and gird in goodly sheaves;
If this poor seed hath formed its stalks and leaves,
Transplanted from a softer clime, and pined
For lack of southern suns in soil unkind,
Where Ceres or Italian Flora grieves;
And if some fruit, however dwindled, fill

The doubtful ear, though scant the crop and bare

Ah, how unlike the growth of Tuscan hill,

Where the glad harvest springs behind the share-
Peace 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;
For love, in fine, is nought but frenzied rage,
By universal suffrage of the wise:

And albeit some may shew themselves more sage

* Memoir prefixed to Bohn's edition of the Orlando Furioso, 1858.

Than Roland, they but sin in other guise.
For what proves folly more than on this shelf,
Thus for another to destroy one's self?

Various are love's effects; but from one source
All issue, though they lead a different way.
He is, as 'twere, a forest where, perforce,
Who enters its recesses go astray;

And here and there pursue their devious course:
In sum, to you, I, for conclusion, say,

He who grows old in love, besides all pain

Which waits such passion, well deserves a chain.

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 present. The impression made upon Scott was such that he was induced to attempt a version 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.' '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 version 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.

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THE EARL OF ELLESMERE

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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 Honcur 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 1039 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 suc

cess 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.

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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 twenty-seventh 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

* The edition consisted of 600 copies. A second was published in Edinburgh in April 1787, as many as 2800 copies being subscribed for by 1500 individuals. After his unexampled popularity in Edinburgh, Burns took the farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries, married his bonny Jean,' and entered upon his new occupation at Whitsunday 1788. He had obtained-what he anxiously desired as an addition to his means as a farmer-an appointment in the Excise; but the duties of this office, and his own convivial habits, interfered with his management of the farm; and he was glad to abandon it. In 1791 he removed to the town of Dumfries, subsisting entirely on his situation in the Excise, which yielded £70 per annum, with an occasional windfall from smuggling seizures. His great ambition was to become a supervisor, from which preferment it was said his 'political heresies excluded him; but it has lately been proved, that if any rebuke was administered to the poet, it must have been verbal, for no censure against him was recorded in the excise books. He was on the list for promotion, and had he lived six months longer he would, in the ordinary routine of the service, have been promoted. In 1793, Burns published a third edition of his poems, with the addition of Tam o' Shanter' and other pieces composed at Ellisland. A fourth edition, with some corrections, was published in 1794, and this seems to have been the last authorized edition in the poet's lifetime. He died at Dumfries on the 21st of July 1796, aged thirty-seven years and about six months. The story of the poct's life is so well known, that even this brief statement of dates seems unnecessary. The valuable edition of Dr. Currie appeared in 1800, and realized a sum of £1400 for Burns's widow and family. It contained the correspondence of the poet, and a number of songs, contributed to Johnson's 'Scotts Musical Museum,' and Thomson's 'Select Scottish Melodies.' The editions of Burns since 1800 could with difficulty be ascertained; they were reckoned a few years ago at about a hundred. His poems circulate in every shape, and have not yet 'gathered all their fame.'

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