The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-03 00:00:00

• we conceive that the bay of Beranger is indigenous, that
it is impossible to transplant it, or, in other words, that
it hopeless to attempt the translation of his songs into
any foreign idiom. As well might a sculptor expect to
adapt himself to the lovers of fashion by clothing a classi-
cal statuette of Eurydice in some one of the costumes de-
picted in the last number of the Belle Assemblee. Unless
the verses of Pierre Jean are studied in the original—
unless the foreign reader -can -surround himself; as it
were, with all the accessories of French tastes—unless
he can fill his imagination and animate his heart with
the memories inspired by French history—unless, in-
deed, he can virtually become, for the time being, a
Frenchman—he can never appreciate Beranger; he
can never recognise there inimitable graces of ex-
pression which defy even the plastic idiom of Ger-
many to copy ; he can never comprehend those
subtleties of fancy ; be can never feel his cheek
blanch, and his bosom thrill, and his eyes
swim with emotion at those deep and passionate out-
bursts of enthusiasm which throw a golden light over the
pages of this great poet, and render him the idol of
thirty millions of his countrymen. Without a foreigner
transplant and alienate himself, as it were, during the
perusal of Beranger, he can never hope to behold the
beauty of his muse. Mr. Young has done every thing
that ingenuity, exactitude, and contrivance could well
effect, towards the translation of the illustrious French-
man, but his compositions are absolutely un• translatable.
Word may be given for word, dactyle for dactyle, spon-
dee for spondee, but the transcript will be as unlike the
original as a faithful plaister cast and the Port-
land Vase. The original song may bo filtered
through grammar and dictionary with the most
scrupulous nicety, but in the very process of
filtration the essence will have evaporated—the flavour
will have departed—the aroma will have become utterly
dissipated. The bloom will have become lost—there
will be the pulp. The beautiful flesh tints will have
faded—there will be the skeleton, or at best the corpse.
It is no poverty in the English language, it is no inca-
pacity in the English translator, it is no obtuseness in the
English reader which thus renders the Chansons ofPierre-
Jean de Beranger untranslateable ; it is the difference of
the idiosyncrasies of the two nations; and not merely the
difference of their idiosyncracies, but of their social
habits, their pastimes, their joys, their sorrows, their
household and historical associations. In this manner
Beranger is to the French people what the orator of the
prairies is, or was, to the redmen. The words of the
Indian orator spoke to the very core of the
redman's heart, they made the blood burn on
his tawny visage, they called at one time the
gushing tears from his eyes, and at another maddened
him to the clank of the gong and the scream of the war-
whoop. But to the European ear the eloquence of the
Redskins sounded only as bombast and hyperbole. The
songs of Beranger, again, act like the national reveillie
to the citizens of France; even Chateaubriand, the
loyalist and Bourbonist Chateaubriand, was moved with
the supreme pathos of the Vieux Caporal when he heard
one of the old guard of Napoleon singing it one day
among a party of vine- dressers—
Conscrits, au pas;
Ne pleurez pas;
Ne pleurez pas;
Marchez au pas,
Au pas, au pas, au pas, au pas!

And how profound are the sensibilities of the veterans
of the empire, when they listen to the chaunt of the
Vieux Drapeau—
Charge de lauriers et de fleurs,
Il brills ear l'Europe entiere.
Quand secotirai-je la poussiere,
Qui ternit ses nobles couleurs !

- -
Intense, however, as is the enthusiasm inspired by
those lays of military glory, it is as nothing to the
ecstasy with which one song of Beranger is hearkened tdin
the home of the artizan, of the merchant, of the peasant,
in the rustic merry making under the trees, among the
fishermen, the hedgers, the ditchers, the ploughmen, the
carriers, among all orders and classes of the people.
" Les Souvenirs du Peuple"—it is the masterpiece of the
immortal lyrist. His translator has here done him little
justice, no justice, worse than no justice. Besides the
want of all euphony in the appellative " Granny,"
the refrain of each stanza is diluted down to the merest
insipidity.
II vous a par/e, grandmere!
Il vous a pane!

O Granny, Granny, did he speak ?
What, Granny ! speak to you?
a *

Quel beau jour pour vous, grandmere !
Quel beau jour pour vous I

Oh, how much joy you must have felt,
0 Granny, how-much joy !
• • •

Dieu vous balm, grandmere,
Dieu vous benira.
Poor granny! God will kindly look,
Will kindly look on you!
Mr. Young piques himself on being a literal translator,
yet the above strikes us as being the very loosest Ora-
phrase, as Carlyle would say, the baldest, wretchedest
paraphrase. We question the propriety or utility of
placing the French original and the English version
cheek-by-jowl in opposite pages. It savours of honesty
and candour it is true, but it utterly annihilates whatever
little beauty there is in the English. Phcebus shines, and
the stars are invisible; so is it with Beranger and his
interpreter. It is some satisfaction to those who admire
the greatest lyrist of this, or perhaps any other age (and
among such admirers we acknowledge ourselves to be
enthusiasts), to know that the heart of Pierre-Jean
de Beranger still beats to the measure of
the old songs which he used to sing of yore. Nay,
more than this, that Beranger can still, notstandwith
ing the pressure of many years, chaunt new chansons
equal in melody, if not in philosophy, to those com-
posed in his adolesence. Here is one—" Notre Coq"—
beginning like a flourish of trumpets.
" Notre coq, d'humeur active,
Las d'Alger, s'ecrie faut
Que jusqu'au bon Dieu j'arrive,
Pour voir s'il s'endort la haut.
J'ai response ii tout qui rive.
Co, co, coquerico,
Franee, rernets ton schako.
Ccquerico, coqu6rico."
The song—manifestly in sentiment a war-song—of
which this is the opening
made its appearance in a new edition of Beranger, now
Who
publishing in Paris. verse, has only very recently
cannot recognise the voice of
the great master in the music of the refrain ?
" Co, co, coquerico,
France, remets ton schako
Coquirico, coquerico."
We trembled lest Mr. William young might have seen
this chanson in time for his series of translations, as in
that case we should infallibly have had some such literal
burthen as this:—

" Co, co, cockadoodledo,
France, resume-thy schako
Cockadoodledo, cockadoodiedo.'"
Having given the commencement of Beranger's latest
composition, we cannot resist transcribing the conclu-
sion, premising that the Gallic cock visits Heaven, being
conducted thither by the imperial eagle of the Emperor
(Napoleon).

“ Sous le drapeau tricolore
Vag echauffer cceurs et bras,
De vows j'ai besoin encore.
Coq, bientot to chanteras
Le reveil avaunt l'aurore.
Co, co, coquerico,
France remets ton schako
Coquerico, coquerico.
L'oiseau, prompt comma la foudre.
Rentre au qaartier general,
Disant : Lion en va decoudre;
Dieu fait seller son cheval ;
Les angel font de la poudre.
Co, co, coquerico,
France, remets ton schako.
Coquerico, coquerico.
Having presented our readers with this fragment of the
last poetical production of the great French lyrist, we
cannot do better than commend the little volume just
published by Chapman and Hall, to the notice of the
public, seeing that it contains not merely the translations
by Mr. Young, but the matchless originals of the im-
mortal poet. In this respect the book is a literary jewel.

•

FINE ARTS.
THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.

From the success which these beautiful engravings
acquired on their original publication, they are being
again issued in a more elegant collected form, with
revised and sometimes re-written memoirs, from the
pen of Dr. W. Cooke Taylor. The Gallery, es the
majority of the lovers of this description of the fine
arts already know, comprises portraits of an extraor-
dinary number of illustrious and eminent personages,
of Peel, and Burke, and Melbourne,
chiefly of the nineteenth century. In this preliminary
volume, for example, there are likenesses, among
other statesmen,
and Lansdowne, and Huskisson, and Aberdeen
there are
Byron, and
e
Amo
and Ileum's, and
Among
g poets Canning, and Grey, and Durham. Among distin-
guished
Eldolanw, lawyers T
s Brougham,theernetearrdeen.Amog warriors there
n and Lyndhurst,
and
are Nelson, and Collingwood, and Rodney, and Wel-
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w,
andandorth,
Allan Anglesey..
andn
Cunningham,
g l ells ee yb
Heber. Besides these, there are
thirty-five other individuals commemorated by the
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series will be a treasure for the book-shelves.

us
PartsT R
majesticl
,T -E1
.D:
andi i . ,
NEWfascinating
sn
ein:ing
TES TA•
in its
magnaficent works produced
HEATH'SAmongltEhievlLTmL.any
sublimeonde nt
under the direction of Mr. Charles Heath, one more
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character,iinfluence
trulyfl ue
people, has not yet appeared than this periodical pub-
lication of the illustrated New Testament. The theme
itself is too sublime to be treated with the ordinary
pencil
of the eminent artist employed upon the em-
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it bearingiis
treated o f criticism.w ith a
with a grace and delicacy beyond an
praise, and the
various incidents preliminary to the Great Atonement
are indicated with an energy that sometimes rises into
awfulness :—The walking upon the sea, the raising
coArrnesdp
the virgin to life, the praying apart in the
mountain, the close of the transfiguration, the
dies bye foretold in the twenty-fourth chapter of the
first evangelist, and the consummation of all things
by the appearance of the Redeemer surrounded by,
the pomp of his angels. It is impossible to exag-
gerate the importance, or to eulogise too highly the
peauty of this splendid feria'.