Report on General Literature. 



81 



experiment of elaborating the beauties of the famous epics 

 of great poets of past ages, and, in obedience to which im- 

 pulse, Pope, Cowper and Bryant have given translations of 

 Homer, and Longfellow of Dante. This present rendering 

 of Faust, having been satisfactorily welcomed by the press, 

 will therefore doubtless do all for its author that he ever 

 anticipated, and also, as a magnificent specimen of book 

 making, will amply sustain the previous reputation of the 

 publishers ; and thus, after its day of praise it will take 

 its permanent place upon the shelves, and give way to other 

 translations which century after century will probably ap- 

 pear, some better and some worse, but none, of course, 

 able to usurp the whole field to itself. 



In romance, one of the leading features of the year was 

 of course the Edwin Drood of Dickens, always interest- 

 ing as a fragment, fraught now in its incompleteness, with 

 a greater mystery than its author ever intended, and seem- 

 ing to exhibit in its last sentences a sort of premonition of 

 his impending fate. After this, as perhaps the most ex- 

 citing event of the year comes D' Israeli's Lothair, a strange 

 and hardly to be comprehended romance, full of some- 

 what absurd characters and situations, and impossible 

 developments of plot. Welcomed with interest as the 

 resurrection of a long obscured genius, and moreover, as 

 the work of an author who since his previous efforts, has 

 attained the greatest official distinction a citizen can gain, 

 the book has excited unusual attention, and has gone 

 through a most varied course of criticism, being at first 

 covered with universal praise, and afterwards, in many di- 

 rections, treated with ridicule. Indeed, so much of what is 

 high-strained and absurd is mingled with its real sparkle 

 of genius, that it could scarcely be expected critics would 

 not differ. The true conclusion, perhaps, lies in the fact 

 that the work, though occasionally brilliant, can hardly be 

 deemed one of great genius ; but that the public in their 



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