The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-06 00:00:00

NOES -152,

Acton, Sir J. Gard, R. S. Paget, Lord C. E.
Adderley, C. B. Gibson. T. M. Palmer, Sir R.
Adeane, 11. J. Gilpin, C. Palmerston, Visct.
i Andover, Lord Gladstone, W. E. Peel, Sir R.
Aytoun, H. S. Goldsmid, Sir F. Peel, F.
Baines, E. Gordon, C. W. Pennant, Col.
Baring-, Thos. Geo. Gower, F. L. Pigott, Sergeant
Bass, M. T. Gower, G. W. L. Ponsonby, A.
Baxter, W. E. Greenwood, J. Portman, W. H. B.
Bazley, Thomas Gregson, S. Potter, E.
Beale, Samuel Grey, lit. Hn. Sir G. Powell, F. S.
Beamish, F. B. Handley, John Powell, J.
Beaumont, W. B. Hanmer, Sir J. Price, R. G.
Bective, Earl of Hardy, Gathorne Pryse, Capt. E. L.
Beecroft, G. S. Hartington,Marquis Proby, Lord. G. L.
Beresford, Denis Hartopp, E. B. Pugh, D.
Berkeley, C. Hayter, Sir Wm. Puller, C. W.
Bouverie, E. P. Headlam, Thus. E. Russell, A. J. E.
Bowyer, Sir G. Heathcote, Sir W. Russell, F. W.
Brady, Dr Herbert, H. A. Salt, T.
Bramley-Moore, J. Ho s al,, T. B. Seely, C.
Bramston, T. W. Howard, Hon. C. Selwyn, C. J.
Brown, J. Ingham, R. Smith, Augustus
Bruce, H. A. Jervoise, Sir J. Smith, Abel
Bury, Viscount King, Hon. P. Smith, J. A.
ButlerJohnstone,l7. Kingscote, Col. Stanley, Lord
Butt, Isaac Knatchbull-Hugess Stansfeld, J.
Cardwell, Rt. Hn. E. Layard, A. H. Steel, John
Childers, H. C. E. Lawson, W. Sykes, Col. W. H.
Clay, James Leatham, E. Thornhill, W. P.
Clifton, Sir R. Lefroy, A. Tollesnache, J. H.
Collier, R. P. Leighton, Sir B. Turner, J. A.
Cowper, Hon. W.F. Lindsay, W. S. Turner, C.
Cox, W. Locke, John Vane, Lord H. G.
Crawford, R. W. Lowe, Rt. Hon. R. Version, H.
Dalg-lish, Robert Mackie, J. Villiers, Rt. Hon. C.
Davey, it. Mackinnon,W. A. Vyner, Reginald
Dickson, Col. Malins, R. Waldron, L.
Dillwyn, Lewis L. Martin, P. W. Walpole, S. H.
Doulton, P. Martin, J. Wat'ington, J.
Duff, M. E. Massey, W. N. Weguelin, T.
Egerton, Sir P. Mittord, W. T. Westhead, J.
Egerton, A. F. Moffatt, George White, Jas.
Enfield, Viscount Moncreiff, J. White, L.
Ennis, John Morris, D. Wood, Rt Hn. Sir C.
Evans, T. W. Morrison, W. Wood, W.
Ewart, William Mowbray, Rt. Hn. J. Wyvill, M.
Ewing, H. E. C. North, F.
Farquhar, Sir M. Osborne, Bernal
Fellowes, Edward Padmore, R.
Foley, Hon. H. W. Paget, C.
Fortescue, C. S. Paget, Lord A.

TELLERS.

Brand, H. B.
Dunbar, Sir Wm.

FIRES IN THE METROPOLIS.—Yestesday morning
the family of Mr. Clark, a watchmaker, residing at
No. 17, Wilton-street, New North-road, Islington, were
aroused by the outbreak of a fire. They managed to reach
the lower part of the house, but were unable to get to the
street door. As a last resource they made for the area, and
cried loudly for help. The police fortunately succeeded in
pulling them out, Captain Shaw, in his official report,
describes the building and contents as all but destroyed,
through the bad supply of water.—About the same time a
fire was discovered in the premises of Mr. M'Sweeney, a
chandler, carrying on business at No. 10S, Golden-lane,
St. Luke's, and considerable damage was done before the
Limes were subdued.

LITERATURE:

Beautes de la Pobsie Anglaise. Par le Chevalier de
Chatelain. 2 Tomes. pp. 813. Rolanni,Libraire,
Londres.

The accomplished gentleman whose hand has
penned these two goodly volumes of English verse,
done into French, occupies a peculiar position inter-
mediately between both literatures. French by
birth, English by adoption, his intellectual habitat
is almost, as one might say, situated at that point,
on the borderland of each, where they approximate
—where they all but touch and merge into each
other. Familiar long since, so to speak, with the
topography of these neighbouring Fairylands, he has
assumed in regard to one of them, for the advantage
of those especially whose mother tongue is that of
the other, the position of interpreter or cicerone—a
position, by the way, for which by natural gifts he
was always well (but for which, by sedu4nis
cultivation, he has long since become preeminently
well) qualified. A cicerone, he is, moreover,
who is endowed with the powers of an improviea-
sore. He has a voluble tongue, a me:odious voice,
and seems perfectly well acquainted with every inch
(perhaps, we should say, every foot) of the ground he
traverses : the ground we all of us traverse so ten-
derly and lovingly as " holy ground," the fairy-land
of our English literature ! During some thirty
years has this accomplished and industrious man-
of-letters held the pen, now as an original writer,

now as a translator. Between 1822 and 1862 he

has written, in one shape or another, twenty five
distinct and substantial works—twelve of these
having been published in England, thirteen in
France. The twenty-sixth of his literary offspring,
the youngest born of his brain and of his rt finedtaste,
will be issued from the press now, we observe, very
speedily under the graceful title of "Rayons et
Reflets—translations, as the prospectus informs us,
" from some of the best English, Scotch, Irish, and
American poets, both ancient and modern. The
work," it is added, " is to be on the same plan as
the two vo:umes already published [the two volumes
here under notice] under the title of Beautes de
la 13,64 e Anglaise,' but composed of completely
new materials, with the single exceptio❑ of Gold
smith's 'Deserted Village,' of which a short frag-
ment only was inserted in ' Les Beaute3,'
which several literary friends have desired
to see in extenso." So much for the pro.
spectus of the forthcoming twenty-sixth effusion of
the literary genius of the indefatigable Chevalier
de Chatelain. Enough, at least, in regard to that
new evidence of his capabilities as a poetical
translator—when we have added, that it gives
promise of appearing as a half-guinea volume,
from 400 to 500 Bvo pages in extent, to be pub-

lished by Rolandi, of Berner-street. The contents
of the volume comprising, among them, translations
into French from the writings of Modern Poets
—many of them famous, such as Alfred Tennyson,
Eliza Cook, Samuel Lover, Mary Howitt, and
Charles Mackay, together with others of a younger
race a few among these latter comparatively little
known, if known at all. From the prospectus we
copy, i❑ evidence of this, the names of " Coventry
Patmore, Sydney Dobell, Gerald Massey, Dennis
Macarthy, Charles Kent, Lineteus Banks, J. E.
Carpenter," &c. Turning, however, from our an-
ticipative glance to this forthcoming supplement,
as we might strictly speaking call it, to the two
volumed work before us, "Les Beanies de la Poesie
Anglaise," here translated by Le Chevalier de
Chatelain from the original vernacular into flowing
French, French almost always metrically melodi-

ous—we will now but very cursorily glance
~.

(for we have but opportunity for a cursory glance,
at the extent of the range embraced within the

scope of the Chevalier's last daring venture.
Conceive for a moment the courage of the man
who in the same substantive publication should
—as the Chevalier actually does here—translate
from English into French, and translate too
cleverly, almost literally, always musically, c'►m-
plete poems from the hands of writers as various as
Dryden, Shakspere, Coleridge, Spencer, Shelley,
Cnaucer, Byron, Poe, Scott, Young, Raleigh,
Southey, Herbert, Campbell, Herrick, Lamb, Gray,
Hood, Milton, Wordsworth! Imagine to yourself
the charm, the attraction, the fascination of a
collection (simply viewing it, if we might, as
a mere literary curiosity)—embracing, among the
old familiar favourites, strangely " done" into
French verse, Le Vieux Robin Grey, or La Destruc•
Lion de Sennacherib, or Le Festin d'Alexandre, or
L'Alouette, or Le Chant de la Chemise, or
L. Ar aig nee et la Illouche, or Le Vieux Fauteuil. As an
exemplar of the skill and ease with which the writer
can transform an English original of world-wide
fame into a French translation, giving the very echo
of the thoughts and imageries, if not the actual
eluivalents of the words employed in another lan-
guage, let us now give, in this new Gallic version
of it, the glorious Hebrew melody of the greatest
poet of the !ast generation :

LA DESTRUCTION DE SENNACHERIB.
Comma un loup devorant en wine d'appetit,
Sur le troupeau belant l'Assyrien fondit ;
Ses armes saintillaint sous la vote etoilee,
Comme etoiles la nuit au ciel de Galilee.

Comme feuilles des bois lursque vert est l'ete,
Hier cet ennemi brillait de majeste ;
Comme feuilles des bois quand a souffle I'automne
Aujourd'hui sur le sol it git la monotone.
Car Pangs de la mort a soufflé le trepas
Sur chaqu' Assyrien, a chacun de ses pas,
Et lee yeux des dormeurs resterent sans lumiere,
Et leur cceur palpita, mais pour la foie derniere.

Et la nez au vent, la gisait le coursier
Veuf de souffle orgueilleux, veuf de regard altier ;
Et la sur le gazon son haleine posthume
Toute froide gisait comme une blanche ecume.

Et la gisait gisait aussi, gisait le cavalier
Le front pale, et la roulle a sa cotte d'acier ;
Et les tenter etaient toutes silencieuees,
Les lances sans support, les trompettes honteuses.
De ne pouvoir sonner ; et lea veuves d'Asshur
De briser de Baal le simulacre impur ;
Le pouvoir des Gentils a fondu comme niege
Non par le glaive, mais—par le Dieu qui protege.
So much, as one specimen of the Chevalier de Cha-
telain's skill as a translator, so much for Byron's
Sennackerib. Now for the translator's version of
another old familiar favourite of us all, the lyric
masterpiece of a popular English Poet yet living,
still but in the flower of her age—Eliza Cook's
" Old Arm Chair" :