MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 5Q3 



PAULINE ; A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION. LONDON. SAUNDERS AND 



OTLEY. 



THIS little poem seems to have been suggested by the perusal of the wild 

 and singularly fascinating work of the Peau de Chagrin of Balzac which we 

 noticed in the last number of this publication. Those who are acquainted 

 with the original, will alone be capable of estimating how far the poet falls 

 short of the novelist in the wild sallies of exaggerated sentiment ; to those 

 who have not read that work, we fear the poet will seldom be intelligible. 

 Such is the vehemence of his aspirations, that it is often difficult to under- 

 stand him ; and while we are endeavouring to discover the meaning of his 

 enigmatical words, we cease to sympathize with his feelings, or to interest 

 ourselves in the woes which he recounts. However, we admit the doctrine, 

 that poets should be judged by their peers and so we leave the author to his 

 chance of finding " fit audience, though few," among enthusiasts like himself, 

 who may possibly understand and relish the beauty and harmony of passages 

 like the following : 



My selfishness is satiated not. 



It wears me like a flame. My hunger for 



All pleasure, howsoe'er minute, is pain. 



I envy, how I envy him whose mind 



Turns with its energies to some one end ! 



To elevate a sect or a pursuit 



However mean ; so my still baffled hopes 



Seek out abstractions : 



******* * 



I grow mad 



Well nigh to know, not one abode but holds 

 Some pleasure for my soul could grasp them all, 

 But must remain with this vile form. I look 

 With hope to age at last, which quenching much, 

 May let me concentrate the sparks it spares. 

 This restlessness of passion meets in me 

 A craving after knowledge. The sole proof 

 Of a commanding will is in that power 

 Repressed p. 42-3. 



FAUST : A DRAMATIC POEM BY GOETHE. TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 

 PROSE. LONDON. MOXON. 



The fame of this extraordinary production, " whereof all Europe rings 

 from side to side," has led to several attempts in this country, to supply the 

 English reader with some idea of the original. Hitherto, however, no one 

 has been found capable of doing justice to the German ; and with the ex- 

 ception of the exquisite translation of " The Mayday Night/' by Shelley, 

 and a few happy accidents in Lord Francis Gower's mutilated version, the 

 task remains in all its original difficulty for some future and more fortunate 

 translator. 



In the meantime, the gentleman with whose laborious undertaking we 

 have now to deal, has, we are bound to say, executed the task he proposed to 

 himself most ably and satisfactorily. He bargained to supply us with a 

 prose translation of Faust, and no man living could, perhaps, have done it 

 better. We thank him ; but we would rather have it " t'other way." 



The truth is, our translator has been misled by " a remark made by Mr 

 Charles Lamb," and by certain observations of Goethe himself. Mr. Lamb 

 it appears, has derived "more pleasure from the meagre Latin versions of the 

 Greek tragedians, than from any other versions he was acquainted with. It 

 may be so but what does this prove, after all ? It only confirms us more 

 strongly in what we knew before : that Mr, Lamb is a very original thinker. 



M. M. No. 89. 3 Y 



