The Press. — London, England, 1858-04-03 00:00:00

330 dissent —e His position, was one of unexampled " difficulty." This is scarcely true. He found the strength of the two parties into which the kingdom was divided so evenly balanced, that by playing them against one another, he would remain superior to both. The position of Charles I. was one of much greater difficulty, when precedent and progress were impercep tibly coming into collision. The position of Wil liam M. was one of much greater difficulty, when his subjects were distracted between their religious dislike to James and their political dislike to himself. He might play parties against each other, but it was a much more dangerous game than under Henry. Mr. Froude's language on this point is unquestion ably exaggerated. The rest of the picture is probably substantially correct, and confirms many of the views we hays ourselves ex pressed. The general contents of the fourth volume consist of the wars and intrigues with Scot land and France with which Henry's reign was so largely occupied. Wherever he has an opportunity, Mr. Froude's narrative and de scriptive powers are conspicuous. The character and death of Cardinal Beton, and of James V., are able and graphic. The loss of the Scotch army in Solway Moss, the despair of James, his last actions and his end, are told with great power and pathos, and with a generous appreciation of the King's nobler qualities. On the whole, however, the fourth volume is not so interesting as the third, nor do all sour quite answer to our idea of what such a history should be. The eccle siastical element not only overshadows, but devours, every other element of domestic interest. Let us hope that when Mr. Fronde reaches the reign of Queen Elizabeth he will give wider scope to his pen, and contribute his quota to the constitutional history of the period. The Most Holy Book of Rolm. Literally Rendered into English Verse, according to the Prayer-book Version. By Edgar Alfred Bowring. London :J. W. Parker and Son. " PERHAPS," says Mr. Bowring, "nothing more " strikingly illustrates the reluctance of the " English people to make any change in what " they are accustomed to—an; iquated, common " place, and even barbarous though it may " be—than the strong hold which this (old) ver " sion obtained and retained on the public mind, " except indeed the similar popularity of the " more recent and still received version by " Tate and Brady'' In passing this unfavour able verdict upon the old metrical translations, Mr. Bowring expresses not only our own opinion but, we are sure, that of most people. The faults of these versions are acknowledged by all : it is singular that those who see them so clearly should fall into them so easily. The reason why these version& in spite of their faults, are not entirely exploded, may be the English aversion to novelties ; but Mr. Bow ring should consider that a new version must be prepared before the old ones can be dis missed, and that any amottat of criticism upon Sternhold or Brady will not of itself furnish us with this new version. We are not con scious that we are influenced by any English aversion to novelty when we declare that at any rate we see no good reason why Sternhold should be dismissed, to make way for Mr. Bowrirg. Mr. Bowling has, no doubt, the advantage of living three centuries after the old versifier: he speaks a langaage no longer rude and undeveloped, hot on the contrary developed to the utmost by a succession of great writers ; the Bible be reads i s no longer a new, half-studied book, but on the contrary a book to the explanation of which many generations of scholars have devoted their powers ; lastly, the task he undertakes is no longer new and untried, but one in the execu tion of which he may derive assistance from every successful attempt and every mistake which has been made by a series of labourers in the same field. Mr. Bowling has had all these advantages, but he has not used them. His version is constructed on just the same childish principle which we may imagine the simple rhymer of the sixteenth century working upon. He takes THE PRESS, APRIL 3, 1858. a verse from the Prayer-book version, and marks the words which have the same ending ; these he writes under each other on the ex treme right of the paper. A work well begun is half done, they say : it will not generally be difficult, since we allow ourselves fourteen syllables in each line, to induce the other words to lie, without openly quarrelling, in their proper metrical places ; as thus : - - From Sion were salva , ion given to Israel, he'd be glad And Jacob joyful, would God.turn his people's durance sad. Or thus :-- AU the foundations of the earth are out of comae. Then Thus said: Ye're Gods and ye are all the sons of the Most High ; But ye shall die like men, and fall like princes. God, arise And ju 14e the earth ; the heathen shall thine heritage comprise. When the Prayer-book does not furnish him with his rhyme, the poet's case is truly pa thetic. What a severe mental struggle must the uncomplaining man have endured while the following couplet was in making!— Then stood up Phinees, and ho prayed ; and so the plague VMS dumb, And that was counted righteousness throughout all line to come. The following suggests a picture of still more tragic distress:— From everlasting Thou art God, world without end, Amen. Thou formest man to dust, Thou say'st : Men's children, come again. It is useless to give any more examples. We need not say that tile volume c.intains many better lines than these. It may be conjec tured that, when the principle explained above is adopted, couplets occasionally come into existence which are not much inferior to the original prose. But it is plain at the same time that, when no trouble whatever is taken to grasp the Psalmist's meaning or enter into his spirit, or reanimate the cuptt mortuum of a literal prose translation, the metrical version can in no case be better than the unmetrical one, and must in the infinite majority of cases be an alteration for the worse just so far as it is an alteration at all. The writer tells us that "in a time of most grievous affliction this " work has been to him a source of comfort " and consolation." He has found " the slow " mechanic exercise " to be " like dull nar " cotics numbing pain." 'We respect his grief, but cannot profess to think his rhymes good They may have comforted himself, but to the public they are nothing. They rest on a mis take, and the only way to mend them is to replace the words out of which they are made in the order in which the Prayer-book ex hibits them. The version before us is constructed on the principle of extreme reverence for the diction of the two authorised versions. We believe that this principle is only partially sound Any one who is accustomed to compare trans lations with originals may, without being a Hebrew scholar, convince himself that our authorised translations, whether accurate or not, are rude in style and teeming with foreign idiom. At least, any one who is accustomed to give himself a strict account of the words he uses, cannot but observe that passages con stantly occur in both versions of ambiguous meaning and even entirlly unintelligible, and that a multitude of others are expressed in language which no Englishman would ever dream of empl , ,yin,g. Now, even from a good prose translation, but much more from a metrical one, all foreign idioms should he care fully eradicated. We arc therefore fully per suaded that to translate the Psalms, the same method should be employed which has been employed in all successful translations of other books. The translator must learn to aistinguish the figure of a psalm from the clothes : in divesting it of the latter he must not injure the former even by a scratch ; in investing it in new clothes he must study not to conceal the figure too much, and he must see that the new clothes be of a truly English fashion, though when this is secured they may, for the sake of old assoc i a ti on , b e ma d e as like the original Hebrew garments as possible. Beyond this, it is scarcely needful to observe, the translator must have a sense of the cha racteristic sublimity of the Psalms of David, such as Mr. Bowing at least appears sadly to A want. The Works of Professor Wilson. vol. XI. Tales. London : Blaekwoods. WE have now reached the last volume but one of this edition. We have seen the Professor under many different aspects—the humorist, the sportsman, and the critic. We have seen him slaying grouse and salmon as if he had never been aught but a gamekeeper, winning a trotting-match against a professed jockey, and passing judgment on poets as if he had been created on purpose. In fact, his delight seemed to be to challenge competition with professional people on their own ground and beat them ;to show of what a man—a broad chested, largemmded, soundhearted man— was really capable ; taking literature in his stride, and maintaining a well-ordered equality in his various accomplishments. He had a copious catholic nature—seeing good in every thing, and imparting the warmth of his own genius to the most unpromising subjects. Ho had a hearty contempt for all that was mean and all that was unreal ; and if this sometimes led him to form erroneous opinions of his contemporaries, it far oftener saved him from that mischievous and careless praise of unde serving objects which is far too prevalent now. " By those who look close to the ground " little gold-dust may sometimes be found mixed up with the dirt. Wilson " saw things from a gteater distance," and thus overlooked both. The present volame leads us away from all that mixture of rollicking tun and noble dis sertation which has characterised the previous ones. We have here a series of tales, told with a rare union of tenderness and manliness. They are painted with that picturesque sim• piicity for which Wilson is famous, and are well calculated to arouse our interest in the forthcoming volume of poems. The present collection, besides a number of minor tales, contains two already well known to the public—viz., " The ri ials of Margaret Lyndsay," and " The Foresters." The former is ono of the best tales of humble life with which we are acquainted. It is the kind of tale that Crabbe would have given us had he written in prose, and, though less diver sified and romantic, is almost as full of true hu man interest asSeutt's " Heart of Mid Lothian." The latter we think less successful. Of' the shorter stories, we have been particularly struck with " The Rainbow," us at once ori ginal and uncommon, and extremely touching. On the whole, perhaps, Wilson as a tide.writer wants gaiety. In his " Lights and Shadows" the shadows aro in undue proportion. Ho seems in these compositions to have surren dered his imagination to the power of that awful truth that in the midst of life we are in death, and to love to hover on the brink Of the tragic and terrible His fictions mostly end well, but the brief summing up does not efface the impression which a tissue of misfortunes or dangers has produced; and we rise from each tale, as from the entire collection, in a rather cheerless frame of mind. This volume contains, as the reader would expect, some exquisite bits of description. We select a Highland Sunday from our favourite talc, " The Rainbow • - It was the Sabbath-day, aid Glen-Creran, that al few hours ago had been as loud as the sea, was now not only hushed in the breathing rep 'se of nature, but all rural labour was at rest; and it might almost have been said, that the motionless clouds, the deep blue vault, the fragrant air, and the still earth, were all united together in one sweet spirit of devotion. No shepherd bhouteil on the mountain —no reapers were in the half-shorn fields—and the tubers man'a net was hung up to dry in the sunshine. Men the party met again in the parlour, whose wide windows open ing down to the flour, let in the pure fragrance of the roses and honeysuckles, and made the room a portion, as it were, of the rich wooded scenery, there was blended with the warmth and kindliness of the morning salutation, a solemn expression belonging to the hallowed day, and to the reli gions state of fee'ing which it inspired. The subdued and almost melanchol) air of the matron was now more touch ing and impressive, us she was dressed in darker widow's . weeds for the house of God; and the street countenanze o f Mary Stuart, which, the night before, had beamed with al most a will gladness, was now breathed over by a pensive piety, so truly beautiful at all times on a woman's features. The Kirk was some miles distrust, but they were prepared to walk to it ; and Edward Ashton, without speaking on the subject at all, accompanied them on their way to divine ser vice. To an Englishman, who hail never before seen a High land Sabbath, the scene was most delightful, as the opening of every little glen brought upon him some new interesting II