The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-26 00:00:00

NEW POEMS.

1. It would be preposterous to deny to Mr .
Jones the possession of some share of true
poetic fire. Absurd as is his political philo-
sophy, and laughable his bombastic egotism,
there are, nevertheless, in this poem, as in
others we have seen from his pen, lines of real
power and beauty. Writing of the loss of
our Indian dominions, he speaks of our flags
inscribed with Sobraon, Aliwal, and Meanee as

Like ghosts of victories round an Empire's tomb !

This is certainly a happy thought Again, in
the following, though nothing can be in our
opinion more silly than the prophecy it con-
tains, there is real vigour of verLitication

Daira's thousand skeletons wlvance,

With calcined fingers pointing guilty France ;
And. dire allies ! to make their vengeance sure,

Behind them tower Oge and L'Ouverture.
Now dreadful ravage ! from the babbling main

Bursts the black horror on the coasts of Spain.

Laugh Mexico ! and clap thy hands Peru
Old Montezuma! break thy charnel through.
Delight sour lamps, poor Vestals of the Sun!
That you may see Pizarro's work outdone !
Upsurges Europe in lberia's aid—
Rebounds from swarthy ranks the white crusade ;
Near and more near, and fiercer and more tierce,
East, west, and south, the sable legions pierce ;
Drive through Justinian's capital the steel,
And spurn Mahomet's dust with haughty heel ;
Tunis!" " Algier !" and " Tripoli ! " they cry,
Prone at the sound behold a nation die!
On ! to the site, where ancient Rome once rose,
And modern towns in meaner dust repose.
tip, Ennus ! up, and Spartaeus ! awake !
Nnv, if sou still can feel, your vengeance slake.
What bleeding form around you column crawls"
The gladiator looks, and smiles, and tails.
See ! where in doubt sublime yon wrecks remain,
If Coliseum once, or Peter's fane,
With shrieking laugh, a kingly phantom soar;
" Oh, venal city ! worth a price no more !"

Mr. Jones tell us this poem was written in his
own blood on the torn leaves of a prayer-book,
while confined in prison in Iµ4 t-9. We
are surprised such a scorner of creeds and
churches should have polluted his vital fluid
by committing it to the pages of a prayer-book.
And we must say that the liquid in question
is of a somewhat less masculine tinge than we
should have expected from a Chartist hero
and champion of physical force.
2. Mr. Derry seems to have a cultivated
taste and some power of composition ; hut,
a!as ! that we should have to apply to him the
rough old truth, poets nascitur. Still he ranks
very creditably among the mass of •` minor
minstrels" with which our table is just now
overloaded.

3. Mr. Matson is at present a very melo-
dious verse-writer. Whether he may ever be
anything more is we think a speculation not
to be rashly dnided in the negative. His
mastery over the mechanism of his art is re-
markable, and where this is found in so young
a miter there is always promise.
Of Nos. 4,5, and fi we cannot say more than
the above. They seem to be written by men
who because they like poetry fancy therefore
they are poets ; and who, because they have
plunged without guide or compass into that
politico-metaphysic quagmire of which the
last quarter of a century has seen the birth,
believe themselves great original thinkers.
Such, at least, is the impression created by
" Uriel."

7. Mr. Low has given us a very prett7
drawing-room edition of the " Farmer's Boy.'
The illustrations by Messrs. Birket Foster,

1. The Revolt of llinck)stan. 13y Ernest Jones. London:
Effingham Wilson.
2. Sebastopol, and other Poems. 11) T. Derry. London :
Virtue. and Co.

3. A Simmer Evening Reverie. and other Poems. By William
Tidd Matson. London: Bateman.

4. The New Dance of Lhath. By C. Boner. London :
Chapman and flail.
5. Footprints of Life, and other Poems. By Alsager Hay Hill.
Loudon : 11..11. Virtue, and Co.
6. Uriel. and other Poems. London: John Chapman.
7. The Farmer's Boy. By Bloomfield. illustrated. London:
Sampson Low.

946

Weir, and Hicks. are elegant and well chosen,
and the whole volume is very well calculated
to aid us in accepting for reality that picture
of rural happiness which perhaps the poet
himself might have experienced, though it
never could be true of his class. It is doubt-
ful, indeed, how ti►r the author, conscious of a
capacity for more ambitious efforts, could
have thoroughly enjoyed the life here por-
trayed.

The Epistles of Osidius Nuso. Faithfully Con-
verted into a New Measure of English
Verse. By John Jumps. London : Bell and
Dalby.
Bacantv speaking, the end of translation may
be said to be first the exhibition of an author's
exact meaning, and, secondly, the clothing of
it in such appropriate and congenial phrase-
ology as the language employed by the trans-
lator may afford. We have very few, if any,
translations of classical authors in which
these two merits are combined. The first,
indeed, may be easily attained by any one
possessed of sufficient scholarship and dili-
gence; and of the second without the first
we have au admirable specimen in Pope's
" Homer." Although, however, either utility
or elegance may be accepted by itself as a
sufficient recommendation of such a work, it
is difficult to conceive how a person can pass
his time less profitably than in writing trans-
lations which have neither. Wo are sorry to
say Mr. Jumps does'ut seem to have one quali-
fieation for the work he has undertaken. He
does'nt understand Latin ; he does'nt under-
stand rhythm ; he does'nt understand pro-
sody ; and he does'nt understand poetry. We
will take the epistle from Sappho to Phaon as
all instance, which will establish all our accu-
sations. Twice in this epistle Mr. Jumps
grossly mistranslates the word celebro—e.y.:—
Arva Phaun celebrat diverse Typhoidos .Etnse.
The distant .Etna blasts of Phaon's name.
Again :
Ta (vogue quFe montes celebras Erycina Sicanos.
And Erycina of those hills the fame.
The word celebro here means to " frequent,"
or " haunt ;" and Mr. Jumps quite excludes
himself from the benefit of any charitable
doubt, by a note on the latter passage, in
which his meaning is clinched. Further on
we have :
Quill mihi 411 M Lesbo? Sicelis esse vole.
Brief here I'll stay,
Sicilia soon to prove.
Why, Sappho had no intention of going to
Sicily. She only wished to be a Sicilian.
Again, she says of Phaon :
Hum ne pro Cephalo raperes, Aurora, timebam.
Et faceres: sed to prima rapine tenet.
Which of course means, " I was afraid that
" you would carry off him instead of Cephalus.
" And, indeed, you would do it now, if your
" first prize did not still occupy you." For
this we have these two unintelligible lines :
On him, Anrora, was to fear thy rape,
But Cephalus was new.
Mr. Jumps mistakes faceres for fecisses. In
another place he translates tophus by "chalk."
And there are innumerable other passages in
which he leaves us ery much in doubt
whether he understood his author or not.
Of quantity Mr. Jumps shows his contempt
by using the words " elegiac " and "Thalia"
as " elegiac " and " Thalia." And of his want
of feeling alike for poetry and rhythm the
whole translation is one long instance. How
well Ovid says of the spendthrift turned
miser :
Quasque male amisit, nunc male quFerit opes.
The translator loses the whole point of this,
and merely says :
He scours the waves
Lost fortune to regain.

Also :
Si nisi owe facie poterit to digna videri,
Nulls future tua est : nulls future tua est.
Shall you love none till by your beauty tried.
How inexpressibly poor ! Or :
Sive juvat longs fogisse Pelasgida Sappho,
(Non tamen invenies cur ego clips fugii)
Oh, saltem,