1876-3 
lady who dabbled in poisons at Paris in the seven- 
teenth century) are well known; bur probably Car- 
dillae’s'character ‘is altogether of his owninvention ; 
and it; isso well, supported, that, as a good story 
may bear to be twice told,, there is theless reason to 
regret an accidental collision in ¢iis instance, between 
the present writer and the author of several spirited 
translations, which came out at Glasgow some time 
after the first of these volumes had gone to press. 
Fot the rest, it is believed that they are as yet 
wholly new to the English public. 
© * Scharfenstein Castle’ is‘ by the Baroness de la 
Motte Fouqué, whosestory of the ‘ Cypress Wreath’ 
appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for 1819, and was 
not only reprinted in other periodicals, but con- 
verted into,a popular tract,,and circulated over 
England. 
. * Rolandsitten,’ (another of Hoflman’s), though 
it seems to haye been very hastily written, contains 
an exuberance of plot, from which, if the materials 
were subjected to a process of remodelling, three 
separate dramas or tales might be constructed. 
'* George Selding,’ had the scene been changed 
into England or Scotland, might (in good hands) 
have made an excellent sketch of domestic life, 
after the manner of Miss Edgeworth, or rather, 
perhaps, that of the author of ‘ Lights and 
Shadows.” Z 
The ‘ Siege of Antwerp,’ here but a rough out- 
line, is yet admirably conceived, and might supply 
the ground-work for an historical novel, in three 
volumes. ] 
* Wallburga’s Night’ is a pretty fair specimen of 
supernatural or fairy legend ; while ‘ Oath and Con- 
science,’ and the ‘Chrystal Dagger,’ by Professor 
Kruse of Copenhagen, thoven but minor produc- 
tions of;his pen, prove his ingenuity in the con- 
trivance of mysterious and intricate plot. 
The *Spectre-Bride’ and the ‘ Sisters’ are among 
those numberless ghost-stories, of which the late 
M. G. Lewis has been the ‘only successful adaptor; 
and the sketch’ entitled the * Warning’ is from a 
* Ghost-book,’ published at Ruddolstadt in 1817, 
where the marratives are, for the most part, founded 
6n real events. 
The translator proposes in future to ac- 
commodate rather than to translate. Ger- 
man manners, sentiments, and modes of 
thinking, differ so essentially from English 
ones, that we are perpetually presented 
with something more or less revolting, the 
avoidance of which, the translator thinks, 
would be acceptable to English readers. 
The proof of the pudding is in the eating: 
for our, own parts, we know no use of 
translations, but the exhibition they afford 
‘the yarieties of human thought and hu- 
1manners. The translator’s proposed 
plan goes to annihilate this utility—but we 
v it the result. 
~~ Boscari, a Tragedy; by Mary Russell 
(Mitford. London, Whittaker, 1826.—Miss 
Mitford, who had/already distinguished her- 
self by: some very graceful poety, and two 
volumes of ingenious and characteristic 
views of country life, entitled “ Our Vil- 
lage; has at length produced -a tragedy, 
which has had the rare fortune of suceeed- 
9 ae stage, and the still rarer fortune 
haying deseryed to succeed, We. shall 
not now try the patience of our readers by 
diseussing ‘the difficulties of tragie writing. 
ol) MiMe New Series. ~ Vor. 11. No.12. 
Domestic and Foreign. - 
657 
The best evidence of those difficulties is the 
extremely small number of instances in 
which any tragedy has arrested the attention 
of the public. To conceive and arrange an 
interesting and intricate, yet natural course 
of events —to invigorate the interest of the 
story, by the truth and force of the cha- 
racters—and to clothe both in the eloquence 
of poetry, are no trivial tasks; and yet the 
attainment of these distinct triumphs is ab- 
solutely necessary to ensure the triumph 
of the writer of tragedy. > 
It is no impeachment of this truth, that 
eyery man who has ever written a line of 
verse thinks that he could write a tragedy ; 
as every schoolboy spouts Shakspeare, 
and every comedian, from Munden and 
Liston downwards to the humbiest Roscius 
of a village, begins, if he judge himself not 
past the age of smiles, by Romeo; or, if 
time and nature have “‘ damned him black,” 
by louring in Macbeth, or raving in’ Lear. 
But, however this pleasant delusion may 
charm at the desk, it is instantly dissipated 
upon the stage. An audience will at once 
acquaint the would-be Aischylus that vapid 
verse is not poetry—that rant is not vigour 
—and that the obtestation of all the gods 
and goddesses that ever figured in pan- 
theons or pantomimes, is not the language 
of passion, simplicity, and nature. Comedy, 
too, has its difficulties—of a magnitude that 
thousands of the ingenious and animated, 
nay, of the observing and ‘the witty, have 
found trying. The evidence rests on the same 
experience—the infinite smallness of the 
number of comedies that survive in pos- 
session of any thing that can be’ named 
popularity. Yet, without comparing ‘the 
powers essential to the production of either, 
it is clear that we have been at least more 
prosperous in comedy than in tragedy. 
Like the ruins of old architecture, frag~ 
ments of the ancient labour of our comic 
writers still cover the literary soil—some, 
more than fragments, and capable of being 
collected into shape, and indulging the eye 
of later times. But the wreck of tragedy 
is like a wreck at sea—its lot has been east 
on the waters of oblivion, where all that 
does not swim in its strength, passes away 
swiftly and irrevocably, leaving the surface 
clear, and resting ‘‘ where never plum- 
met sounded.” Yet the direct contrary 
might be presumed to be the course of 
things. The habits of peculiar ages, the 
modes of ‘thinking,’ the popular language, 
the publie characters, the characteristic 
pleasantries, the whole soul of harmless sa-= 
tire—itself the soul of comedy—are as tran- 
sitory and fluctuating as wind or wave. But 
the passions, the bold impulses of ambition, 
the fires of revenge, the frenzy of jealousy: 
—all that constitute tragedy—are as im- 
mortal as the mind. Yet, in defiance of 
theory, what revived. tragedies are listened 
to, but» those of one writer, two hundred 
years in his grave ? The conclusion is ir- 
ary Pome the power required for the 
4 > 
