The Press. — London, England, 1853-06-04 00:00:00

JUNE 4, 1853. 1. All persona not belonging to tho Eatabli►►l►«l Church may cause declaration of their ilhownt to bt , regis tered ; wiwreloy they erase to be liable to payment of Church rates. 2. All persona so registered shall not hold elotreh others, or partake in church ordivanees, or vote in vestry on church affairs. 3. But the right of such persons to burial in emote crated ground shall continue, subject to the payment of certain with • al fees. 4. Church rates way lie recovered and appealed against in the same manner as poor rates. 5. Power shall he given to compel the laying of rates for repair of the elntreh or churchyard, and for due provi sion of necessaries tier church service. These suggestions show moat clearly that the principal features of Mr. Phillimore's bill were by no means original, and that this ques tion occupied the senous consideration of the late Government. That section of Churchmen represented by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. more seem ever unwilling to give Lord Derby's Administration any credit for their exertions in the cause of the Church, and especially for establishing the principle in the. Metropolitan Interments Bill that Dissenters had no claim as a matter of right to be buried in conseentted ground, and insist upon ordained ministers performing the funeral service over them. Lord Stanley's pamphlet is deserving of the most eareful perusal, even by those who do not concur in his views. If any bill be intro duce(' by the Conservative party with reference to this subject, we trust it will be more elm , - fully considered than Mr. l'hillimore's. The analogy between church rates and tithes will by many be considered to be so strong, that m their view the present state of things would be regarded as far preferable to any measure which, hastily considered, and uncertain in its results, might give rise to any division of opinion amongst the Conservative party and the friends of the Church. Fables de Gay ; ttuduites en very Francais I►ar le Chevalier de Chatelain. Author of " Ram bles through Rome," ►Ste. London : Whittaker and Co. IF we were invested with the necessary autho rity and powers, but one consideration should restrain us front putting literary translators on their oath, us it is the rule to put inter preters at a tri a l ; and that one consideration is the enormous nfultiplication of pet juries to which we should indirectly, yet surely and inevitably, conduce. It may, we think, be taken as almost axiom atic that of every great book the portions most easily and successfully translated are inva riably the worst. This, for many reasons. In the first place, such passages, like ruined and desperate characters in revolutions or inva sions, have nothing to lose, and lose nothing ; on the other hand, they may possibly and accidentally gain something. if in the per disorder there be indeed anything to gain. In the second place, in things of base value, equi valents can be readily and roughly established ; whereas, in matters of beauty and esteem, every shade of difference vitiates the exchange of one against another, even where the intrin sic price might, in market overt, be fixed about equal fir each. A stupid, vulgar, and awkward expression in English may have nothing which corresponds with its exact meaning in French; but it' any equally mean, vulgar, and awkward expression, in the like, or in pretty nearly the same, range and order of notions, be given for it in the second language, nothing is lost. Suppose, however, a word or short passage, the beauty, spirit, and felicity of which were as remarkable as the defectiveness of the previous part—if the precise meaning and full force and genuine peculiarity of such a passage or word cannot be rendered in terms of integrally cor responding significance, then, though the second language may have thousands of ex pressions of equal or even greater charm, not one of them will meet the ease ; and no true idea whatever is, in that particular, given of the translated book. Something is always lost to the reader of a translation. Both languages may have equally tine capabilities for conveying the endless varieties of meaning which can arise in the human mind; and of those varieties both may lixpress an equally large part. But that part which one of those languages must success full emodies ma nevertheless not be the put y b in which the y other is most e ff ective. THE PRESS. The parlenes de sit yloire" of Beranger may or may not be as perfect in its kind, and may or may not be out kind as tine. as the " .1 oltu Anderson, my jo, John: of Robert Burns. Yet it might, and we think does, s o happen that the English language affords immea surably better means of translating the mnireniot du people than the French languag• would supply to any poet who wishes' to give his countrymen a full appreciation of the famous Seottish fireside song for the down• hill of life: Translation is never better, when at the best, than the decanting of an effervescent wine ; and, as for the translation of poetry. and. above all, of that species of poetry which is racy of the peculiar soil in which it sprang stud has been fostered by the pe culiar influences of that climate under which it bloomed. you had better try to transplant the vine to Nova 'lend& or daisies to the Sahara. The greater and nobler languages resemble the various lands which lie under the tempe rate zone, and can each naturalise at home most of the spontaneous products of the other. In that they are nearly equal : stud in that can interchange the advantages of trans lation. The ordinary, the every-day. and the universal ideas of social life are, like the vegetables and the minerals of these latugnages. an easy matter of reciprocal c ommerce. E ac h, however. has its own productions of literary art. which are as difficult to render as it would be to give an epicure ant idea of the pate; de Perigord by placing before hint a Staffordshire pie. The muse of Babel was limited to speech ; had it been extended, we should now, for instance, be offering to the French or Radians sculptures by Flatxman or Hogan as translations of the works of Canova. Would not. something, and that something excellent, arising out of the genius Ist nations and the inspiration of individual artists, always remain inappreciable and lost to those who see but the copy of great and admirable productions? It is far from our meaning, however. to con demn, or to assail, or to underrate translation. Translators (under that decree we stand) sire a necessary evil, and their labours arc at thank less service. All that we say is, that in eminent books those parts are the most easy to render into another language which are least worth the rendering ; and that the qualities which render works inunortal are probably the very qualities which defy translation. It. is no wonder that we should be ls.ai into these rem mrks when we s ee at F ren chman undertaking to let his countryinen judge for themselves, in. his French, of our charming fabulist. Gay. Whatever missy be the general difficulties Of translation, they are certainly' greater to the Fmuch than to any other civi lised people on the thee of the e arth. In Europe, the Russians are probably the best linguists, the French unquestionably the worst. Even from Spanish or Italian they translate badly ; but they translate better insist Spanish or Italian than Insist English. It would lend us away from our subject were we to trace the causes of this. The fart will be admitted. Now, we Sholliti I►c' merciless, indeed, if in criticising the attempt which M. de Chatelain here makes to turn, under difficul ties so elna'lllollS, Guy's fables into French, we made no allowances. If the positive excel lence of his performance be not very great, the relative exeellence of it is astonishing. Creditable as very many of these versions are, there are some appended to the fables, speci mens, in M. de Chatelain's French, of other and more serious English authors, in higher departments of poetry—specimens in which, we are in justice bound to acknowledge, most thorough appreciation of the originals rK evinced, and in which their merits shine through the rendering with very little abate meat of lustre, and with no alteration of chit meter, spirit, or tone. The reader will be equally charmed stud surprises! by these sam ples, culled, as we gather, front a collection preparing for publication. We cannot speak so highly of the versions from Gay. Some half dozen are us good as they could well be. In most of the rest there are serious blemishes. First, we have nearly twice as many lines in the French as ill the English, and the majority of those lines nearly twice as long. The effect may be conceived. 115 The versification is, besides, eontinually shifted, according to the caprice or conve nience of the perplexed Frenchman ; and !several rhymes occur whieh the strict genius of French verse would condemn. One, which is atnwious, and which would not be tolerated in any language. we will mention : he makes citix rhyme with—what?—why. with cites, with the Very same orthography. Again, the original is often wistranslated : some times a whole thought is omitted; some times many thoughts are positively interpo lated ; sometimes the greatest jargon is intro duced merely for rhyme : and. where }Wiwi' tails.•even Latin is tilllllUlolled to the rescue. Surely tiny goes for nothing, and worse thou nothing, in all this. Our &bulled (p. 24) has the couplet : "Thr ph,ou hovausik of uino despised, Asol the cocks utatchlemt valour prized." We look to the opposing page and we find that simple passage thus strangely rendered :- - Tomato ,Inc Ile 'filet's', unitive mat wow., !logistician oh Ads et oh hoe saloto la %slant do cog." M. de Chattehtill knew not how to get a rhyme for mot without all this trashy Latin. hoe. ste. At page 8:1 oeeurs a couplet for which there is not OM' corresponding word in Gay, Mid the last words of which are again Latin, and uttorly meaningless in the passage ; medi eat ini—to rhyme with s'ottymenta. A sparrow Slip: to an owl k p. 136): '• I grunt you view at Athena owed. And on Nlinetra'A helm acre placed." In an abominable rendering on the opposite page the sparrow asks the owl whether they were ever so many Demosthones's ? Not be elitise the sparrow wants uu answer, or bemuse this incongruous mixture of the passerine with the human. isditical, and oratories' Ammeter is any improvement on the simplicity and pro priety of hay. but because Demosthenes will rhyme with A thMeq. We could multiply such instances. The work is dedicated to the present Duke of Wellington. the translator's former pupil, hi a letter in which the writer quotes tho words lords of the human kind," as au exession "of that graceful rival of Moore, t ree poet 111'Carthy," on the subject of great authors. Wt' mention this for the reader's wonting ; lest, in advertently, he should attribute the phrase to Oliver Goldsmith, or cite it as occurring in The nit in reference to the English people. Frn,umr'+► Magazine. No. ':N•.. London : Parker and Son. Pawl'''. Mafia:hie for the current month open* with an a►ticle of n►ore than ordinary mark anti interest. •• 31ancliester, by a Manchester Man," contain* au inquiry—written in a spirit of earnest yet genial phi losophy—into one of our great modern enigma*, the eontlition of those industrial hives where wealth and humanity are piled in masses which alternately sparkle and putrefy ; where miraculous machines are iuventell, miraculous Anilines realise►l, and miraculous Leagues contrived; and whence the emintry at large receives ,e u uetiu►es honey, anti sometimes a sting. 'l'i►e paper is on a striking subject, and strikingly written. The articles which follow are well up to the mark. /Wets. Hy Dennis. Loud4nt: lAmgmun and Co. DiscAtabtxo pretension, and therefor► avoiding of relive, the author 11114 tilled hi• slight volume with not %widowing harmonies. The far-off echo of Tenn)son and other of our breveted bards may be traced through his strains; but Mr. Dennis, if we mistake not, has powers which, duly improved, will entitle hint to Ilisetotim eloquent music of his own inspiration. Asa nod trial, and if a first trial, the 'swum before us promise well for the 66 shall be, hereafter." OF it 1.11111.111 , 1 TAIII.E. Itamil,Jed a a !loader. Juba Epq. .1. Murray., Nates to the Text of Shia...peat , . J. I'. Villitta F. kerwd 1:4). th,ser ar, the Spirit a Prffitml. J. I'o:kir and sou. Plum to Remodel the ;toy rosient qf ImPa. Smith, Elder, mud co THE ELEcTItIvITY (II THE HUMAN BMW. secortling to the New York Tribune, is Ito active and abundant that anybody may light ga% with the tip or his huger : " We are all peripatetic Iw•ifer•lllatehea if we 51141 but know It. I.et a liee,miti In their eihoe4 or 'dipper* walklirlokly 'lvor 6 "moan' ramet, wrijNimp his feet thereon; or *tend upon a chair with it* 109/ . 4 in four tniublera to insulate it, and be there rubbed lip and down lab the body a few thaw with a if by another perm's• awl The will light Isla gas by aliuply toughing linger to the tube. The writer Wit lighted it in tin% way, and awn it dune by chit. dren not hails dozen years old." ii ••••• • • • 1,