LORD STRANGFORD’S TRANSLATION OF CAMOENS: 
sought for the originals, though no doubt 
whatever would have existed in our own 
minds. [n fact, he who is any ways con- 
versant with Portuguezeliterature, could 
not for a moment believe that any poems 
of this character, we’ may almost add, of 
this merit, exist in the language. We 
will not say that Camoers has never 
written so well, for what beauties he has 
ate of a higher class, of a purer and 
better feeling: but he has never written 
so fancifully, and where any hint of these 
Canzonets and Madrigais does exist in 
his verses, it has always been most mate- 
rially improyed. We will adduce one 
instance more. What follows is the li- 
teral and naked translation of the 34th 
sonnet. , 
* When the clouded sun is showing to 
the world a calm and doubtful light, I 
vo along a delightful meadow thinking 
of my fair enemy... Here I see her con- 
certing hertresses, there with her face so 
fair upon her hand, here chearfully talk- 
ing, there thoughtful, now standing still, 
now walking; here she is seated, there 
she sees me, raising up those éyes, so care- 
less! here somewhat moved, there se- 
.cure; here she is sorrowful, there she 
_laughs, and in finein these weary thoughts 
_this vain life perpetually passes away. 
When such a poem as this is referred 
. to as the original of the coming canzonet, 
will not the reader wonder why Lord 
Strangford, like a true adept, should wish 
. to conceal his power of transmunting base 
metals into gold? . 
«¢ When day has smil’d a soft farewell, 
And night-drops bathe each shutting bell, 
‘And shadows sail along the green, 
And ‘birds are still, and winds serene, 
, » L wander silently. 
«« And while my lone step prints the dew, 
Dear are the dreams that bless my view, 
To Memory’s eye the maid appears, 
For whom have sprung my sweetest tears, 
nt? So oft, so tenderly: 
J see her, as with graceful care 
She binds her braids of sunny hair ; 
I feel her harp’s melodious thrill 
Strike to my heart—aind thence be still 
Re-echo'd faithfully : 
- T mect her mild and quiet eye, 
Drink the warm spirit of ber sigh, 
See pours Love béating in her‘breast, 
573 
As it is an allowable stratagem in war 
to hoist false colours, we have no objec- 
tion to see good verses of Irish manutac- 
ture smuggled in ‘under the Portugueze 
flag, but when his Lordship ceasures the 
very conduct which he has himself adopt- 
ed, without acknowledging what he has 
done, he carries the deception too far. 
<¢ The translator begs to observe, that for 
the most. part, he has closely eopied his au- 
thor, but that where circumstances demand- 
ed, he lras not fesitated to be 
«© True to his sense—but trver to his fame.” 
<¢ Literal versions are justly deemed ab= 
surd; yet, on the other hand, too great an 
extension of the Horatian precept, ‘ Nec ver- 
bum verbo, has been the bane of many. It 
has proved to the world of translation, what 
the phrase ‘ liberality of sentiment’ has been 
to that of morals—the werst of errors have 
originated from hoth.” 
Twenty sonnets have been selected 
from three hundred and one of the ori- 
ginal; for each of these a prototype 
exists, but the resemblance is never strik- 
ing, partly because Lord Strangford 
cannot submit to the trammels of trans- 
lation, partly because he has adopted the 
Italian structure of the sonnet, in oppo- 
sition as it appears to his own better judg 
ment. 
««A mongst ather reasons why the legitimate 
Jtalian sonnet be not snitable to the genius of 
‘the English language, the following is not the 
least forcible. in those languages which are 
more imineciately formedon the Latin, there 
is a frequent similarity of termination, which 
greatly facilitates the use of rhyme. Accord- 
ingly, the Italian, Spanish, and Portugueze 
languages (which originate from that source) 
have adopted the heence of polysyllabic 
thyme, and with it thesonnet. The former 
was a liberty which they could scareely have 
avoided, but which has never been sanctioned 
by the * Muse severiores’ of England. To 
as, therefore, the mechanical arrangement of 
A sonnet becomes a matter of peculiar dith- 
culty.” 
The point is fairly stated here, but 
Lord Strangford has neglected to draiv 
the legitimate inference. ‘This has been 
well done by Mr. Coleridge. “ A same- 
ness,” he says, * in the final sound ot its 
words is the great and grievous defect 
of the Italian language? ‘bhat rule, 
And wish to mine it’s pulses prest, 
as, foa8 knows how fervently! 
S ~ «Such are my hours of dear delight, 
| And morn but makes me long for night, 
And think how swift the minutes flew, 
When last amongst the dropping dew, 
» ' “Twander'd silently.” 
therefore, which the Italians have esta- 
blished, of exactly four different sounds 
in the sonnet, seems to have arisen from 
-their wish to have as many; nét from any 
dread of finding more. Brit surely iz i. 
ridiculous to make the wee af a foreign 
