We would willingly dwell upon the beautiful ballads, which are the most precious part of the early poetry of Spain, and which appear in this volume in very pleasing, but very paraphrastic, versions into English. But we must pass on, to speak very briefly of the specimens of Portuguese poetry. The editor has here adopted the same division into historic periods as in the case of Spain; the materials from which he has drawn were copious, for besides many of the translators already mentioned, Strangford, Adamson, and Mrs. Hemans have made numerous and valuable contributions for a Portuguese anthology. As for the originals, one name is written so high above all the others, that the foreign reader's attention is fastened almost exclusively upon it. Neither the first nor the third period in the literary annals of Portugal seems very rich, if we look at the quality of the wares, rather than their quantity; and the second appears engrossed, as it were, with the single fame of Camoens, the writer of the national epic, who, in his lifetime, was steeped in poverty to the lips, and died in a hospital. As usual in such cases, a splendid monument was erected to him fifteen years after his death, when his name had become honorable to his country, though his country could no longer be of service to him. The Lusiad" is the heroic poem of Portugal's heroic age; it celebrates one of those grand feats of maritime adventure, which form epochs in the history of the world. Vasco de Gama's great discovery of a passage round the Cape of Good Hope seems hardly to afford sufficient material for an epic; but Camoens himself had followed in this distinguished captain's track, and the story of his own adventures and sufferings in the East Indies might have furnished out a poem of equal or greater length. The merit of the work is probably to be ascribed in a considerable measure to his personal adventures; if he had seen and suffered less, he might have written less forcibly. Misery is the most effectual, as it has been the most common, stimulant of genius. The defects of the poem are nearly as conspicuous as its beauties; overwrought description, an ill-constructed story, and incongruous machinery are great drawbacks from the pleasure given by an epic. These faults, unluckily, are not likely to be lessened in a translation, and Camoens certainly is under no great obligations to Mr. Mickle, who has done the "Lusiad" into English. A better idea of the poetic genius of the Portuguese bard will be gained from some very pleasing versions of his minor poems. We have endeavoured to give the reader some idea of the very varied and interesting contents of Mr. Longfellow's volume; but the sketch has necessarily been an exceedingly meagre one. The book abounds with material for the gratification of a cultivated taste, and for the instruction of every mind of a generous and inquiring nature. But it does not admit of abridgment, and the nearest approach to a summary account of it would be to copy its table of contents. suggests many themes for criticism and reflection, which we have reluctantly passed over, and now leave for the unbiased consideration of those who may be able to dwell long and studiously upon its attractive pages. It London: ART. IX. Historic Fancies. By the HON. GEORGE THE institutions of England seem to have reached a crisis which will require all the wisdom of her wisest statesmen to conduct to a safe and happy issue. Pressed to the earth by a national debt, the extent of which imagination itself can scarcely embrace, hemmed in by vast accumulations of property, side by side with the most sordid poverty, the working classes have reached the lowest point of suffering which human nature can bear. The prodigious emigration to the colonies, and to the United States, increasing every year, scarcely seems to diminish the terrible sum of evil which still exists at home. The destiny of England is a grand, but fearful problem. The cries for relief from millions of agonized human hearts cannot go up for ever in vain. But what measure, or what series of measures, wisely conceived and vigorously executed, are destined to work out her salvation, and raise her to a power and a prosperity even beyond her present imperial greatness, perhaps no human sagacity can as yet foresee. Among the most curious phenomena, however, which the condition of affairs in England has exhibited to the world within the last fifteen or twenty years, is the development of the party calling itself by the somewhat fantastic designation of "Young England." It is a party made up of a number of young gentlemen, who know that great wrong now exists, and that it ought to be removed. They have as yet executed no measures that we have heard of, to bring about so desirable a result, except the wearing of white cravats. They talk a vast deal of nonsense about the Venetian oligarchy, and Erastianism; and they dream dreams about reuniting the cottage and the throne, about restoring to the monarchy its ravished prerogatives, and to the lower classes the merry games and the convent alms that they enjoyed under a system of things which has now irrevocably passed away. The Revolution of 1688 is their especial abhorrence; and they abuse in good round terms what they are pleased to call the Dutch system of finance, whatever that may happen to be. They have some vague, mystical notion, that the Middle Ages were a sort of golden age for the people; and that this golden age must be restored, if the ills of the present turbulent days are ever to be cured. They speak of the Church, in the day of her unquestioned supremacy, with reverence, and of the implicit faith which she exacted, as something which she had a right to claim, and which is still her due. The Reformation, to Young England, as well as to the Puseyites, is a terrible stumbling-block. Freedom of individual conscience they think the source of unbounded mischief and an absurdity. The baronial castles, the monasteries, and the cathedrals of the Middle Ages they look back upon with longing and regret. Feudalism, with its reciprocal duties and obligations, seems to them the ideal of a wise and sound civil polity. The oppression of serfs, the unbounded scope then given to the licentious abuse of power, the stupid ignorance of the slaves, and the scarcely less stupid ignorance of the barons, the rude organization of society, the brutish ferocities of private war, and the nameless horrors of the detestable system of chivalry, vanish from the view of these dainty gentlemen, as they chant the glory and the happiness of the past, contrasted with the shame, and meanness, and sufferings of the present. The infinite cruelties of religious persecution, the rack, the thumb-screw, the faggot, the Inquisition, and the Holy Vehme; the seigniorial rights, not only over property, but over persons in their most sacred relations, in many cases rendering the purity of domestic life among the lower classes dependent on the rare and unaccustomed chance of their having a virtuous and considerate lord; - all these characteristic traits, which make up the very essence of those vaunted ages, are not taken into the account by this retrospective party. The leading spirits of Young England have made a very prominent figure in literature of late years. They have affected a profound and philosophical air, have solved the difficulties which the wisest had vainly done their utmost to remove, and have, without the slightest ceremony, pushed from their stools the men on whose shoulders the burdens of state have immemorially reposed. Some of the dandy novels of Mr. Bulwer are conceived and written in this spirit. Mincing gentlemen, hardly out of their teens, feeble voluptuaries, who have exhausted the resources of sensual indulgence before their prime, flourish their crude and wordy speculations, and are represented as superseding the longtaught lessons of experience and common sense. Several of Mr. D'Israeli's works have the same pseudo-political bearing. Early in life this gentleman seems to have cast a wistful eye upon the glories of a political career. The dandyism and affectation of Bulwer's heroes found in him an admirable realization. With imagination, some knowledge of literature, and, judging from his books, with vanity unspeakable and immeasurable, with words and phrases, some with meaning and some without, at his unlimited command, all he needed was an assured position to take a leading part in the fantastic drama about to be enacted by the members of Young England. After having written a series of volumes in a tawdry, but rather taking style, wherein great things were portentously announced, Mr. D'Israeli married a position and a seat in the House of Commons. A short time ago he published his "Coningsby," a novel which excited considerable interest among the political and literary quidnuncs of England and the United States. It has passed through several editions, and though something more than a year has expired since its publication, still continues to be read. It abounds in what are meant to be portraits of living political characters, and is supposed to embody the principles of Young England. These two circumstances have prolonged the term of its natural existence several months "Her charms are of the growth of heaven, "No, never since the fatal time - p. 429. When the world fell for woman's crime, "Why, why is she so much above I feel she must contemn my lays : Were she less lovely, less divine, Less passion and despair were mine."- pp. 430, 431. The French poets of the present century appear to considerable advantage in this volume; and yet, they hardly have their due. But very few of their effusions have been skilfully married to English verse, though they are more translatable than the works of their immediate predecessors, the classical school. There is a very good introductory notice of Chateaubriand; but the two translated scraps of his verses give no idea of his poetic talent. Five or six of Beranger's inimitable lyrics have been capitally rendered in some of the English magazines, and Mr. Longfellow has done well in transferring the versions to his volume. A few translations from Victor Hugo, executed with great spirit and elegance, have been borrowed from our contemporary, the Democratic Review. The specimens given of the poetry of Madame Tastu and of Auguste Barbier are enough to make one wish for more from the same source. |