With regard to the accusation of indecency, I have only to say, that, when Mrs. Austin's Selections shall have superseded the Old Testament— which, if any selections could produce such a catastrophe, they would--and Mr. Bowdler's Shakspeare shall be the only Shakspeare on our shelves,* I shall be quite ready to admit that Faust deserves to be excluded from general perusal for indecency. But not till then; for the whole poem does not contain a fifth part of the condemned expressions or allusions to be found in any two books of the Pentateuch, or any two acts of Othello, Hamlet, or Lear; and (confining this observation to Shakspeare) I am sure the purpose is equally pure. I say so much in reply to the objection urged, as I have now and then heard it, by men of feeling and taste, who understood what they were talking about. As for this writer, the indecency he complains of is his own: for example, he thus alludes to the song sung by Margaret at the commencement of the prison scene: "A voice is heard within, singing a rude ballad, so gross as to indicate insanity." The song, like Ophelia's, was intended to indicate insanity, and would not be grosser than that, did it mean what this gentleman thinks it does, which it does not. I appeal to the I beg Mrs. A.'s pardon for coupling her with Mr. B. I rather think the best soi-disant purified edition would be like woodcock without the trail; but Shakspeare purified by Mr. Bowdler is what neither gods nor men endure. literal translation (post, p. 195) and the note. One instance more and I have done with him: Cursed villain! "FAUSTUS. Begone: name not that lovely creature:-do not To wish her mine again. MEPHISTOPHEles. What then must be The sad result? She thinks you have forsaken her; And so you have almost. FAUSTUS. Nay, I am near her; And were the winds and waves a barrier 'twixt us, I never can forget her, ne'er forsake her. MEPHISTOPHELES. Well, my friend, often have I envied you Away, base pander! FAUSTUS. MEPHISTOPHeles. Ah! you abuse me: I must laugh; Now 'tis great pity-you shall once more enter Her chamber, not to death. FAUSTUS. What joy What heavenly joy is in her arms!" This the reader will have the goodness to ob serve is a castigated having been omitted. passage, five or six lines * Post, But it is, notwithstanding, p. 113. indubitably true that all the coarseness discoverable in it, as given above, is attributable to a most ridiculous mistake. He actually supposes, and would lead those of his readers who do not know better to suppose, that the ruin of Margaret had been already consummated! What, then, did he suppose to be Mephistopheles' object in inflaming the passions of Faust? I once heard of an attorney, who sent a young lady to get another act of seduction performed that the action might be more surely maintainable; and perhaps the translator thought that Margaret's mother had employed the devil to procure evidence against Faust. Of the power manifested in the unfinished fragments left by Shelley, few think or speak more highly than myself; and I quite agree that nothing but a few months' study of German was wanting to make him fully equal to an adequate translation of Faust; but yet— (But yet is as a gaoler, to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor,) it must not be forgotten that they are unfinished fragments, and that Shelley was far from perfect in the language he was translating from; and no admiration of his genius, no respect for his memory, ought to prevent our saying that he has not done justice to Faust, if it can be clearly made to appear that he has not. I shall, therefore, point out the principal errors by which the general effect of his translation is impaired. They will be found to be something more than specks in the sun; but if not, it is surely a fact worth noticing, that the sun has specks. The fragments in question consist of the prologue in Heaven, and the May-day Night scene. The first has no great merit, and few considerable mistakes, though quite enough to show the translator's want of familiarity with German. He has furnished us with the means of bringing this to an indisputable test by appending a literal translation of the Archangels' song to the poetical one. Now, in the first stanza he translates Reise-circle, and "herrlich-excellent; and in the second there are two palpable mistakes: “ And swift, and inconceivably swift The adornment of earth winds itself round, And exchanges paradise-clearness with deep, dreadful night. The sea foams in broad waves From its deep bottom, up to the rocks, And rocks and sea are torn on together In the eternal swift course of the spheres." The words in italics are wrong, and I see no reason for translating Pracht-adornment. There are three errors in the following: “MEPHISTOPHEles. Well and good. I am not much in doubt about my bet; Ay! dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure, old paramour, the famous snake. Like my THE LORD. Pray come here when it suits you." To make The Lord give this general invitation to Mephistopheles, is a fault which it is impossible to palliate, and the two others are sufficiently gross. (See post, p. 4, 5.) He also translates "mit dauernden Gedanken," with sweet and melancholy thoughts, which is not merely at variance with the letter but with the spirit of the text. The following mistranslations occur in the May-day Night scene. Mephistopheles says to the will-o'th'-wisp, "Ei! Ei! er denkt den menschen nachzuahmen." Shelley translates it: Ha! ha! your worship thinks you have to deal The following passage contains two mistakes, which greatly injure the effect of the scene: "Tell me, shall we go or stay? Shall we onward? Come along: Trees and masses intercept As I have remarked already in my commentary on Lord F. Gower, it is not shall we, but do we. The words translated-which intercept the sight, |