The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-03 00:00:00

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2. Wo shall not allow all the nonsense anti
extravagance in this volume to deter us from
saying that it pOSSeSSeS very considerable
merits. There is co►n►nand of versification
displayed in many of the pieces, and some
rough, strong thought is apparent at intervals.
What the meaning of the title may be we
cannot divine, nor the sense of such an
address to the critics as the poem opens with.
Is no human being able to form an opinion on
poetry except Mr. Richardson? Unless he
means to assert that his words are literally
nonsense.

We must ask the authors of Nos. 3 and 4,
us we asked Mr. Jumps last week, what is the
cud of translation? Either instruction or
amusement it must be. But such versions as
these before us aro incapable of providing
either. We aro not underrating the abilities
of either of these gentlemen ; but the idea
of these kind of translations is fundatnen-
tally a mistaken one. If we aro to have
a literal word for word version like Mr.
Mackie's, let us resign all attempts at verse.
It is simply a waste of time and trouble. For
who would not just as soon read one of the
old-fashioned " cribs " as the following ?
Then Fauns you saw and beasts in mearired tread
Disuott, then stout old oak trees bow the head.
Parnassian crag in Phoebus joys not thus,
Nut Orpheus Rhodope so heeds, nor 'summit.
lie sung, how fused through void immenaity
The germs had been of earth, and air, and sea,
And eke of liquid fire; from these how cane
MI else, and this young world grew up a frame.
How soil to harden, and shut Nereus in,
Began, and slowly forms of things to win;
Anon, how lands see 'mazed the new sun glare,
And rains distil from clouds uphorne in air :
When first the woods begin to rise, and when
Lone beasts are ranging heights untrod of men,
Neat stones by Pyrrha cast. Saturnian time,
Cancssian birds he notes, Prometheus' crime,

Adds, seamen how lost Hylas at that spring
clad called, till all the coast did " Hylas, Hylas!" ring.
Again, with regard to Horace, to suppose
that all metres are adapted to all languages
equally seems to us a monstrous confusion of
all the principles of euphony. The English,
for instance, is a great deal too full of mono-
syllables and unemphatic terminations to suit
the lyrical metres of Horace, in which every
syllable tells. Let us take the seventeenth
ode for example. Everybody with the slightest
pretensions to scholarship knows that one
great charm of the Alaric stanza consists in
the proper modulation of the third line—e.g.:-
1. Defendit tesititem capellis.
2. Olentts nxiirea mariti.
3. Valles, et Ustieei cubantis.
4. Manabit ad plUoum beuigno.
Now let us mark Mr. O'Brien's lines in the
same manner, and see how they will read :-
1. The fiery burning heat of summer.
2. The spouses of k lusty husband.
3. Of wide out-spreading Mount Ustica.

4. From bounte'oas hoin i rich and plenteous.
Now let us put it to Mr. O'Brien as a matter
of common sense, whatever is the good of
introducing the Horatian metres if our Eng-
lish system of pronunciation is to be thus
murdered to support them ; or, on the other
band, if their own peculiar harmony is to be
sacrificed to the exigencies of English !
There is no abstract virtue in any particular
number of syllables, as this class of transla-
tors seems to suppose. It is very odd that an
age which sneers at Latin verse-writing as
unprofitable should be so fertile of poets who
give themselves all the trouble of the former
occupation without producing any of its
elegance.
No. 5 is a modest and unpretending volume,
the worst of which we can say is that the
originals seem scarcely worth the trouble of
reproduction. However, as a harmless and
gentlemanlike amusement for a leisure hour,
it is all very well.

Six Months at Sebastopol. Being Selections
from the Journal and Correspondence of
the late Major George Ranken, R.E. By
his Brother, W. Bayne Ranken. London :
Westerton.
MAJOR RANKER had the melancholy distinction
of being the last British officer killed in the
Crimea. He was engaged on 28th of February,
xetion of the White Barracks,
Several of the mines had

I,BK in the destruc
in the Karabeluaia.