The Sun. — 1856-07-04 (London, England)

ULY 4, 1856.  LITERATURE.  HEINRICH HEINE.  Heinrich Heine's Book of Songs. A Translation, by John E. Wallis. Chapman and Hall.  Scarcely—thought we, on opening this volume— scarcely three months have elapsed since that melancholy 18th of February when poor Heinrich Heine expired and lo ! already (purporting no doubt to be his all but living and breathing effigy) here are the mere dry bones of him—a caplet mortuum, grinning at us from the top of a skeleton. Empty sockets only where once shone forth upon the world the radiant tearful eyes of the lyric philosopher ! The eloquent tongue perished altogether out of the jaws no longer covered by the mobile lips breathing so often the language of passion in the accents of pathos, and smiling perpetually upon Grief like the beautiful old Shaksperean phantasy of Patienee upon the Monument. Here again, thought we, as we mused momentarily over the title-page, here again, in lieu of the old familiar face, the face beloved as familiar, hero again, as so often before, we have of course but the grimliest skull tricked out with a garland, a death's-bed crowned with a wreath of blooming flowers, a coronal of roses, and violets, and carnations ! Another German poet "done into English" posthumously—another vapid_tranSlation—a decanted flask of champagne—a butterfly with the gold and velvet of its wings fingered " off" deplorably—a mere handful of withered leaves gathered from under branches clustered with blossoms in the spring time and heavy with fruit in the autumn-season, dry dead leaves now instead of either mellow fruit or fragrant blossoms. An egregious mistake all this—a flagrant example of most erroneous anticipations ! The book is admirable, from first to last really admirable. It is the voice of Heinrich Heine himself we are listening to, the same voice through another tongue, different in word but not in thought, and most like, strangely marvellously like in its variable and dulcifluous modulations ! Henceforth, Wallis will be to us a name of good omen. For already one artist of that name, an artist of the brush has rejoiced our eyes and touched our heart profoundly by his exquisite representation of the Suicide of Chatterton, one of the most remarkable pictures now adorning the Royal Academy Exhibition. Another artist of the same name, an artist of the pen (John E. Wallis) has through the medium of this charming volume of translation conveyed to the ea-s of lettered Englishmen unversed in the original, the melody as well as the meaning of Heinrich Heine's " Book of Songs," Birch der Liedcr—these songs which are so to speak his passports to immortality the unfading bloom the imperishable aroma of that supreme efflorescence of his genius; the work whi,:h may be regarded as the type of his powers, the great book of the Reisebilder. Among all his various and voluminous writings—" Alnaansa," and " Radcliffe," and " Salon," and " Nene Gedeehte," and " Romanzero," his " Romantische Schule," his " Vermischt Schriften," and his " Gestandnisse"—this one important production, his Keisebilder stands forth conspicuously and characteristically. And what the Beisebilder was considered in regard to Heinrichlleke'slintellect, his Buch der Lieder may be said to have been, when viewed in relation to the Reisebilder. It was the " cream of the cream"—the quintessence of the quintessence. A translation of the poetry of the " Reisebilder" has already appeared in the English language, a version penned some time since by Mr. C. G. Leland, and recently published at Philadelphia. With that versima, however, we have nothing to do beyond simply mentioning it thus, as a thing accomplished. The translation for the most part having been written so long ago, Mr. Wallis tells us in his Preface, as 1840, rests altogether (in spite of the prior issue of Mr. Leland's volume from the press of Philadelphia), entirely and wholly upon a basis of perfect independence. Produced originally, as we have said, in 1840 (sixteen years ago), when our translator was a student at a German university, it was only revised and arranged at the suggestion of a German friend (revised and arranged in Germany) as recently as 1852, and four years more were then allowed to elapse before the time actually came at last for its substantive publication. Then poor Heine was no more—the eight dreadful years during which he had been slowly dying in Paris had come to an end—and there was a term at length to his tears and to his laughter. Happily for those who can but read Heinrich Heine's " Book of Songs" at second hand, through the interpreting of a Translator, Mr. Wallis appears to have set about his task from the outset with a most accurate and lively sense of the great requirements of a translator—those of reconciling or adjusting as ingeniously as possible "the letter, the spirit, and the melody of the original." How far he has succeeded in this endeavour let the volume before us answer, a goodly volume extending to 350 pages octavo, and embracing the whole of the Famous " Songs" first collected into one "Book" in 1827—the " Songs" lamenting the vain passion of the poet for the blue-eyed, light-haired, prettyfaced, ladye-love who, to sum up her qualities in three words, was small, cold, and insignificant. What poetry there is in these Songs ! W hat passion—what pathos—whatjoy—what anguish—what tenderness ! How grotesque they are—how spontaneous ! They make us weep one moment ! and the next shake ourside with merriment. Heinrich Heine loves—Ah, how he loves ! The Book tells us. It tell us by the pages blotted and blurred with his tears—for he loves, as we have said, in vain ! It tells us by the hand sometimes covering his face suddenly to hide the grief, a grief too sacred for revelation. Listen to him Here is one of his " Songs" (viii.), but four lines in all— " At first I fancied in despair I ne'er could learn my fate to bear, Yet I have learn'd to bear it now— But, oh 1 you must not ask me how !"  Now by a quaint imagining, analogous somewhat to that of Professor Longfellow : " And our hearts, though atoUt and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave—" he amuses his agony of mind by singing— " Love, lay thy hand on my bosom here ; List what a knocking and noise is there. There dwells a carpenter strange to see; He hammers a coffin that's meant for me. He knocks and hammers both night and day; He's driven already my sleep away. Oh, master carpenter, hasten fast, That I may slumber and rest at last."  Another while, among his wilder and fiercer " Dreams," he cries out to a harp, in the voice of a harper perched upon his tombstone— "Snow ye, ye strings, so sad, so still, The strain that wildly used to thrill Our hearts in the world above? 'Tis heavenly bliss where the angels dwell, The devils they call it the pain of Hell, But its name on earth is