The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-08 00:00:00

FINE ARTS.

BURGER'S LEONORA. Traristated by Julia 111.
Cameron ; with Illustrations by Daniel Mactisc, R.A.

Among the numerous offerings of song from Germany,
this noble and celebrated ballad is one of the worthiest,
and it is here produced by Messrs. Longman in a gor-
geous arabesqued binding, printed on glazed paper almost
as massive as cardboard, and in type of the German cha-
racter. To the lovers of ballad poetry what a feast is
not here! The genius of Burger, the accuracy of Miss
Cameron, and the imagination of Maclise! And who
was not already familiar with the verses of Leonora?
Who had not already hung over that thrilling tale,
rivetted by the horror of its catastrophe, and entranced
by the music of its diction? Who had not already
mourned for, and with Leonora, and followed her breath-
lessly through her flight with the goblin horseman?
Those who had not will find a new field for their ad-
miration in the present version, embellished as it is by
the poetic fancy of Daniel Maclise. Those who, like
ourselves, were, long before its publication in this form,
lovers of this masterly ballad, will derive new pleasure
from its appearance under a guise so novel and so beauti.
fully appropriate. Although there is a glaring absence
of the renowned lines in the translations of Taylor and
Scott—

" Tramp, tramp, across the land they rode,
Splash, splash across the sea ;"
that very omission is admirable as a token of the rigid
manner in which Miss Cameron has adhered to the text
of the original. Besides, as that lady judiciously inti-
mates in her preface, the introduction of the sea, in the
interior of Germany, is somewhat of a solecism. The
success with which Miss Cameron has rendered Burger's
words into English, without scarcely the alteration of a
syllable, is extraordinary : and, although she adheres
strictly to the text of her author, she in no measure
trammels the ideas or fetters the rhythm. Maclise has
drunk deeply of the spirit of the poem, his pencil has
been the truest interpreter of the " sentiment" of
Leonora. The drawings, which have been dexterously
engraved by John Thompson, are exquisitely classical;
two of them are not unworthy of the hand which limned
that splendid cartoon of the Genius of Chivalry which
some time back hung in the south-western corner of
Westminster Hall. In the. first delineation there is
an animation in the crowds in the background,
which contrasts charmingly with the pensiveness of
the solitary figure in the foreground. The victorious
battalions are returned, they are marching homeward
through the streets, and the maiden is looking anxiously
amongt he warriors for her betrothed—
" But why stands Leonora there
Alone, amongst the rest,
Whilst all embrace ? To her pale lip
No loving lip is prest."
The face of Leonora is beautiful as the dreamings of a
poet. Miss Cameron has translated the subsequent
stanzas with singular felicity and power. The ravings
of Leonora in her grief, her wild and blasphemous ex-
clamations in answer to the solace offered by her
mother, and the broken colloquy which ensues between
them is only inferior to the original of Burger, in pro-
portion to the appropriateness of the language in which
the thoughts were conceived. " God is love," says the
mother. "0! mother, mother, lost is lost," cries Leo-
nora. When the mother insists that " All that God
(loth is wisely done," Leonora exclaims, almost beside
herself with sorrow, " Oh! mother, God bath not well
done," the mother bids her calm herself by thinking of
God and heaven; and then comes that most impassioned
verse—

" Oh, mother, mother, what is heaven ?
Oh, mother, what is hell?
To be with William, that's my heaven ;
Without him, that's my hell."
It is in the simplicity of the translation that we con-
ceive that the success of Miss Cameron's version consists.
She has contented herself with allowing the language of
Burger to be heard in all its purity without attempting
any alterations of her own. The most admirable draw-
ing by Daniel Maclise, in the collection is, to our think-
ing the one prefixed to the lines:—
" Now, nearer draws the funeral train ;
Like croak of frogs resounds the strain.
Why tolls the bell ? Who, solemn, say,
Dust unto dust, and clay to clay ?"
The posture of the horse, and the grouping of the
spectral figures, with which the air is filled, are the pure
emanations of artistic genius. The volume altogether
is a beautiful novelty.

ROYAL GEMS FROM THE GALLERIES
OF EUROPE. Part XIL

Gladly do we observe a continuance of ability
in this interesting serial, and a promise that on
its completion the subscribers will be possessed of
a very valuable treasury of pictorial art. The
celebrated picture by Rubens of " Saint Martin
dividing his cloak" is here given us by the graver of 11.
Robinson. Excepting that there is an inelegant harsh-
ness in the delineation of the mendicant woman and her
children, and a striking deficiency of expression in the
features of the principal figure, the plate, as a specimen
of manipulation, is successful. " The Siren "ofJ. G.
Middleton is the second engraving, but although there is
much skill in the management of the lights and shades,
and in the disposition of the drapery, there is an ab-
sence of espieglei is in the countenance of the Siren
which militates against the production as an accurate
copy. " The Way-side Fountain," from the original of
Berghem, is a cool and Cuyp-like landscape.

THE CHRISTIAN IN PALESTINE. Part XI.
Often as we have eulogised this periodical, we have
never yet been disposed to do so with more alacrity
than at present. The portraitures of scenery are
in their way inimitable, and, from the extraordinary
and paramount fascination of Holy Land, they are
always and peculiarly attractive. From the brevity of
our space at this moment, we are compelled to do
nothing more than enumerate the plates contained in the
eleventh part, just published. Those plates are the
" Plain Er-llahah," the " Mount of Olives," the " Dead
Sea," and " Sarem." The publication deserves success.