NOTES. Vision of Beauty, dear Undine.- Page 9. 6 THIS name is pronounced Oondee'na in German, but the common English pronunciation, Undeen,' seems to be more in accordance with our mode of speaking such names as Emmeline, Geraldine, Iarine, Rosaline, &c.; that is, Emmeleen, Geraldeen, Eeareen, Rosaleen. Masses of vapor coursed over the moon with the swiftness of thought.— Page 25. Some of these images may remind the reader of the vivid pictures of the BUCCANEER, that rich contribution to our permanent literature : "The scud is driving wildly overhead." Their white tops, flashing thro' the night, A wild and shifting light." We do not remember any poem of this class, since the appearance of the ANCIENT MARINER, that has discovered such powers of imagination, the union of such sweetness and terrible energy, as this tradition of the olden time. We have had here, on this side the water, many of the gentler breathings of Nature, but, in the strong delineation of passion, we know not what America has produced to be well compared with the Buccaneer. Is this trumpet-note of crime, and the doom of crime, the last 'sound' we are to hear from the Pyrenees'? We hope not. Dear, dear Undine! — Page 28. This intensive form of expression is almost as familiar in English as in German, and I have not scrupled occasionally to employ it. The following example, from THALABA, is one of the most impressive in the language: "No sound but the wild, wild wind, These lines from the Ancient Mariner afford another example, and one still more remarkable : And - well, other things will settle themselves. - Page 30. "Undine evidently meant to have added another condition, but then thinking it superfluous, only remarks,—well, other things will settle themselves.'" C. F. You are yourself the cause. - Page 32. "That is, you act or speak in such a manner, as to make me treat you rudely. Why do you say such provoking things?—It is a kind of tender reproof, in self-defence." C. F. Noble monuments glimmer below. — Page 56. No reader of English poetry need be reminded of Southey's admirable description of the submarine City of Baly in his CURSE OF KEHAMA. "In sunlight and sea-green, The thousand palaces were seen Of that proud city, whose superb abodes Seemed reared by giants for the immortal gods. "Freiherr," baron. There is something peculiarly whimsical in this quiet humor of lord or baron Kühleborn.' Name-day.- Page 67. A literary friend, from whose kindness I have derived the best aid in revising and correcting my version, informs me, that this term "refers to a German custom of celebrating, not only the birth-day, but also the name-day, that is, the day which in the almanac bears the person's Christian name. The old almanacs contained a name for each day in the year, being either the name of a saint, or some other remarkable personage in history.' The preceding note was written six years ago. The friend to whom I referred, is now with God. He perished in the appalling calamity of the steamboat Lexington, on the evening of January 13, 1840; and I cannot but allow myself the mournful indulgence of adding, that it was the late lamented CHARLES FOLLEN, LL. D., to whom the allusion was made. The words of Horace never seemed so natural as now: "Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus - cui Pudor, et Justitiæ soror Quando ullum inveniet parem? Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit.' Shall we not weep? Shall tenderness e'er die O when shall modest Genius, spotless Faith, Bewail his fate in tears. With every friend of literature, religion, and human happiness, we are impatient to receive the promised MEMOIR and REMAINS of one so truly christian, - -one so exalted in wealth and power of intellect, so childlike in spirit, so holy in heart and life. Morning so bright.- Page 69. In reading some of the verses of Fouquè, we cannot but remember the question of Hamlet to the player, Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? As one example, among many, we may take the original of his miniature picture here: "Morgen so hell, Blumen so bunt, Gräser so duftig und hoch An wallenden See's Gestade." These four little lines, descriptive of the scene of Undine's song, simple as they are, cost me more trouble in trying to mould them into a fit English form, than I well like to acknowledge. I made several attempts, without much success, to translate them to my mind. Among these versions, the following had the merit of not being the worst: The morning beams in glory, but after all, the more verbal rendering, as it now stands, seemed to be preferable. 6 The words of the original are, "nur nenne mich wieder Du,” only do call me THоυ again.' The use of the personal pronouns, thou and thee, so familiar and endearing in the German idiom, gives an entirely different impression in English. In the conversations of this tale, examples of this peculiarity occur on almost every page. The translator has of course avoided a mode of expression, which most of his readers would feel to be stiff, strange, and unsuitable. A laugh of mockery and contempt came pealing up from the depth of the river. Page 97. This fine passage of Fouquè bears a strong resemblance to a finer one in Southey's THALABA, Book V. "And he drew off Abdaldar's ring, And cast it in the gulf. A skinny hand came up, And peals of devilish laughter shook the cave." The reader, if he take any interest in the coincidences of genius, may like to compare with these passages, the following verse from king Arthur's death in PERCY'S RELIQUES: "A hande and an arme did meet the sworde, And flourish'd three times in the air; Then sunke benethe the renninge streme, And of the duke was seene noe mair. Only little waves were yet whispering and sobbing around the boat.-Page 98. The original of this clause is, "nur flüsterten noch kleine Wellchen schluchzend um den Kahn." If the translator may be allowed to express his admiration, without being considered intrusive, he would say that nothing could have been more exquisitely conceived than this circumstance. Its tenderness seems to have touched the heart of a lover of the beautiful and true, who has just favored us, in his YEAR'S LIFE,' with so much of fine feeling and poetical experience : "Or weep, unmindful if my tears be seen, The betrothed, are called bride and bridegroom in Germany. "Post mediam noctem visus, quum somnia vera.” — HORAT. For he "Denn er denkt gewiss blutwenig an alle diese Dinge." surely thinks very little of all these things.' The temptation to render this odd idiom, blutwenig, by some equivalent phrase in English, was a whim too strong to be resisted. A thrill both of bliss and agony.—Page 110. The expression of the original is, "lieblichen Wehe," a blissful agony' or 'pang.' This union of opposite qualities, however bold the conception producing it, and however suited to express the death-pang under such circumstances, forms a curious felicity, rather too violent to be often admitted in English. Phrases of this kind are more familiar in German. Groschen. Thaler. Ducat. - Page 124. "A Saxon groschen is about 3 cents (2 cents, mills;) a thaler, (an imaginary coin) 72 cents (71 cents, 8 mills ;) a ducat, 2 dollars 20 cents, (2 dollars, 19 cents, 4 mills,) American money." Waters — feeling of sympathy. — Page 142. This sympathy of Nature with man, may remind the reader of the fine imaginative feeling of Bryant in the opening of his THANATOPSIS. Speaking of Nature, and of one who "holds communion with her visible forms," the poet observes, that to such an one, 6 I was not a little gratified, three years after my Table-Talk Notices of these "dreams of faery were written, to meet with the deserved praise of this unique story in the London Quarterly Review; and I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting the passage in this place. "Phantasmion' is not a poem; but it is poetry from beginning to end, and has many poems within it. It is one of a race that has particularly suffered under the assaults of political economy and useful knowledge; -a fairy tale, the last, we suppose, that will ever be written in England, and unique in its kind. It is neither German nor French. It is what it is pure as a crystal in diction, tinted like an opal with the hues of an ever-springing sunlit fancy." Rivulet — seeking its fortune. - Page 181. "Sie rann und sucht'ihr Glück."— UNdine. High-priests of Nature. - Page 182. This, of course, was written prior to the death of Coleridge,- many years before he was admitted to visions of the universe, to which the views of earth, views even glorious as this, are dim as the earliest dawn. "Queen of Western Isles." — Page 187. From Park Benjamin's beautiful lines, written in that "fair Elysian isle," Barbadoes. By the way, when are we to welcome this writer's Sibylline Leaves in a collected form? There are many who feel his spirit, the easy flow of his verse, as well as his fine touches of nature, -many, who have been long waiting to see, not only these compositions gathered from the four winds, but others of greater extent, whether narrative or dramatic, permitted to come forth from their Delphic recesses. 'Thunder-word.' - Page 187. "Ach! und mit dem Donnerworte." SCHILLER. How I looked, how I languished, &c.- Page 195. "Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error!"—VIRGIL. Forever changeful and mutable. - Page 208. "Varium et mutabile semper."— VIRGIL. Foemina! - STROZZI.- Page 209. This is a version, the name only changed, of one of the MADRIGALE of Giovambatista Strozzi. See that delightful melange of literature, the BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA of S. T. Coleridge. When may we hope to have a full memoir, or a new edition of this work, enriched with origi nal letters, the omitted chapter on the 'esemplastic' power of the imagination, and many other matters that we are impatient to greet? Where, too, can the Philosophical Fragment' be lingering from year to year? But we are too importunate, we fear, considering what treasures of thought we have already received from the Coleridge mine. Besides, we are waiting in confidence as well as in hope: Mr. Green, the author of VITAL DYNAMICS,' cannot but give us this "fragment from the table of the gods" both ably and at the best time. Bobolink.- Page 258. This is one of the most joyous birds, that pay us their annual visit of the warm season. He seems to be the very impersonation of "tipsy mirth and jollity." Among bird-amateurs, however, there is a slight difference of feeling in regard to the characteristics of his mind and music. Some receive the impression from his "sweet jargoning," his grave glee, we may call it, that, shaking his wig of pale yellow with an air of the most comic solemnity, he is cracking his jokes and wasting his musical bon-mots upon the sober birds around him, from morning to night; and that even his name, Robert of Lincoln, he considers as much too grave for him, since he is never weary of reminding you, that Bobólink,' 'Bobólink,' is the true christening. But others there are, who "see nothing of the jocose in Bob." In their view," he has a heart full of joyous sensations, and pours them out with utter delight; but he is no quizzer, too innocent in his mirth for that, too much taken up with mere happy sensation for it." Who shall reconcile these differences of feeling? Coleridge seems to have made this abstruse item of bird-metaphysics quite clear: "O Lady! we receive but what we give, 5277 THE END. |