The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-25 00:00:00

reader will, we think, admit the direct contrast
between the aborigines of the western continent.
The reader will bear in mind that the historical
work now under consideration, embraces all periods
of time previous to that of the landing of Columbus
in 1492.

" The fundamental error, with all writers upon the
aborigines of America is, that they have viewed them
as one people, Authors have therefore been confounded
by the different customs and ceremonies of religion as
practised in the two great divisions of the continent;
they have seen that the natives were, to a certain ex-
tent, in one part of the vast domain, idolators, and
not in the other; that the North was essentially repub-
lican in every aspect of its political existence, while
that of Mexican America was as essentially composed
of kingdoms and empires, and governed by despotic
monarchs, and that Republics were interwoven with
them ; that each man in the North was a warrior, and
an equal, acknowledging no superior, but their leader
in time of battle, and, should he fall in action, there was
not a member of the tribe in which they politically lived,
but could have taken his place, and filled it with similar
courage and ability. In Mexican America they were
not equal, but, from the Emperor they descended by
degrees to the serf and slave ; in that country, stone
and stuccoed temples and palaces were, and still con-
tinue to be found, erected with costly magnificence, and
in which were jewelled idols to which they bent the
knee ; their rich dwellings were splendid mansions,
adorned with sculptured and beaten gold, and graced
with the works of art, and as a people, enjoying all the
refined elegancies of life ; but in the North their temple
was the azure canopy of Jehovah, adorned with its
myriads of golden stars, and when beneath that sublime
dome they bent the knee, it was to the Almighty God
alone I Their palaces were the gorgeous vistas of the
forest ; the columns were the gigantic trees, each year
increasing in their stateliness ; their shadowy and pointed
roofs were the far-spreading branches, and nature's
tinted foliage ; their mansions were those of independent
wanderers, eren the simple tents of Israel ; and as for
jewelled idols and figures of beaten gold,—they pre-
sented the diamonds of the human eye, radiant with in-
tellectual beams, and glancing from the living emblem of
the first and priceless image, placed in Eden's garden by
the Architect of the Universe ! Notwithstanding these
essential opposites in character and policy, to which
may be added that of physiognomy, writers have glanced
at them as one race, sprung from the same branch of
the human family, and without defining which ; and
when they could not reconcile such apparently unac-
countable distinctions and diversities, they have thrown
upon the shoulders of the Mexican the mantle of manly
virtue belonging to the north ; and upon this race they
have thrust the idolatrous vices and the festering robes
of luxury justly claimed by the former people ; and by
this easy manner of disposing of a question, have seem-
ingly satisfied themselves that, by blending the crimes
of both, to the exclusion of the virtues of either, they
were all savages ' and no matter from whence they
came. Thus have they formed their conclusions con-
cerning fifty millions of human beings, although directly
in opposition to evidences of fact, to deductions by re-
lative reasoning, and to all Christian feeling, which
alone should have rejected so cruel a decision, founded,
as it is, not only on alight but careless investigation."
_

The foregoing extracts will go far to induce the
reader not to rest satisfied with the opinions we have
pronounced on this delightful and instructive work,
but to cull for himself from the many brilliant and
poetical flights in which it abounds. The vindication
of the fair fame of the Tyrian Princess Elizabeth,
familiar to every school-boy as Dido, the foundress of
Carthage, from the aspersions cast upon her character
by the Mantuan Bard, and the true account of her
suicide or immolation, will not prove the least inter-
esting portion of the volume to the classical scholar ;
but there is no part that will not both please and im-
prove the general reader .

GOETHE'S FAUST, Transla-ed into English Prose.
By A. Hayward.--Translated into English Verse. By
Captain Charles H. Knox.
Upon the wild and extraordinary tragedy of
" Faust," the principal portion of Goethe's celebrity
rests, and his celebrity is immense and permanent.
Among his many illustrious countrymen Goethe has
no rival in general literature—embracing in that one
comprehensive word " literature " all the varieties of
poetry, history, biography, scientific dissertation,
ethical composition, geographical and etymological
writing, prose fiction, essay, and the other multiform
phases of authorship. In each of these phases, of
course, there may be found in Germany men who
have rendered themselves pre-eminently great. With
Kant as a metaphysician, with Swedenborgia as an
ethical romancist, with Humboldt as a geographer,
with Richter as a novellist, with Muller, with Liebig,
and with many other equally renowned writers,
Goethe no doubt could not be mentioned as a rival in
their several departments. But as a versatile genius,
as a genius comprehending all the forms and diver-
sities of human knowledge, Goethe stands out alone
and supreme: In his way he is a sort of literary
Crichton. His intellect has about it an essentially
Protean character ; and it is by reason of this mar-
vellous capacity for excelling in so many branches of
literature that his fame is so universal and his name
to conspicuous. Considering him only as a poet,
Goethe towers above the bards of his father-
land. As a poet, indeed, he has only two
competitors in the language the immortal
Schiller, and the gifted Klopstock. The
netrical works of Goethe abound with excellences
Aeculiar to himself, excellences such as are not to
be discovered among any of his contemporaries, or
among any of his predecessors. Of all these works—
Ind they are wonderfully numerous—Faust is ac-
knowledged to be his masterpiece—his Hamlet—his
Paradise Lost—his Cenci—his Austerlitz—his Eve
at the Fountain. Faust is more universally known,
perhaps, than any other poem that has ever been
penned in the German language. And it has be-
come familiarised to the multitude not merely by the
perusal of the original but by innumerable transla-
tions, and by the exquisite and matchless outlines of
the poet-artist Retzsch. With the forms of Doctor
Faust, of the beautiful Margaret, of Valentine the
Soldier, and of Mephistophiles with his scarlet dress,
his long-pointed sword, and the very cock's feather in
his hat, we are all of us as familiar as with those
)f Prospero, of Adam, of Achilles, or of Manfred.
With the different scenes and incidents again in this
strange and enthralling drama we are equally well
Acquainted. We have all of us marvelled before now
opening
,nphgeynt
ihneg Wagnersc praisesene i
nF
ocouldfapttahphueeedsaitrGs,
appearance,
gonesodrctbneu:denothing
ylmw, ihwog efhhnet
poison he invokes
in
the black poodle that slunk through the corn-field at
the heels of himself and his master the Doctor. Then,
moreover, there is the memory of the
Almighty.
hhesu sublime lsi m
Therebe
y isintro-
duction
deterred
ttheh
the
eto the tragedy, where the archangels are sing-
Spirit of Nature, when he recoils from the awful
bereoamu t y
draining of t
s chorus of angels on Easter morning, when his
heart melts within him at the sound of their
voices in the sky, and he spurns the goblet from him
and weeps passionately. There is the joyous ca-
rousal in the fields, the song of the rustics dancing
under the lime tree, the transformation of the poodle
into Mephistophiles, and
,the quaint dialogue in
which the latter writes in a student's album—
" Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et inalum." Then
again Auerbach's cellar, where the demon draws
Claret, and Champagne, and Rhenish, and Toqua,
from little gimlet-holes in the table. Who can ever
lose a recollection of the orgies that follow in the
Witch's kitchen, where the male and female monkeys
set the chimney a-light by neglecting the cauldron ;
or who can forget the first glimpse of Margaret in
the street? Impressing the mind so vividly as
every portion of this splendid drama does, it is
impossible to have it thrust upon our attention too
frequently, and it is equally impossible for us to feel
amazed at the number of translations that have
succeeded each other. Among all these translations,
we must at once confess that we award the preference
to the magnificent fragments. written by the poet
Shelley. They surpass everything of the kind
within our recollection ; and we cannot in-
duce ourselves to believe that even Coleridge
was more competent than Shelley to become
the interpreter of Goethe. Still they are essentially
but fragments. We must look elsewhere for the
whole tragedy, and looking elsewhere, we are at-
tracted first of all to the very best of the entire
translations, namely, the prose version of Mr.
Hayward. The fourth edition of this work is
lying before us, just published. We rejoice to see
the copies of a book of so much excellence multiplied
in number, and to see it produced, moreover, in so
cheap and portable a form, because a boon is thereby
afforded to the million. It would be an affectation to
enter upon any criticism of a translation which has
already been criticised a thousand times—which has
been picked line from line, and word from word, and
scrutinised piecemeal. Mr. Hayward has his laurel
already. He has found very little bitterness in that
laurel, and he has deserved to find very little, for his
version of " Faust" is almost as accurate as the re-
flection of any given object in a mirror. Captain
Knox has not conceived himself to be justified in
eschewing either rhythm or rhyme, and, consequently,
he has adventured upon about the ninety-ninth me-
trical translation of "Faust." We can award him
praise for what he has accomplished, but the praise
is somewhat small, and it is this : that he has adhered
more closely to the meaning of the original than any
of his poetical predecessors excepting Shelley, but that
his verse is as tame as it is smooth and polished.
Without wishing in any way to be invidious, we ask
any one to decide as to the merits of two fragments
raannddo mt.h Well, o hereal are
translationtw o ; thefa
prosesingle
iheel :
st at
translatione out of the middle of Margaret's song at
the spinning-w
" For him alone
My glances roam,
For him alone
)ek e
d veoru
I stray from home."
That is Captain Knox's version, now here is the
version of Mr. Hayward :
" For him alone look I
Out at the window !
For him alone go I
Out of the house 1"
Can there be Any comparison ? Although it is