THE 
MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



No. 62. | 

AUGUST 1, 1800. 
(NMio.31, of Vou. 10, > 





On the 2oth of. Fuly was publifbed, the SUPPLEMENTARY NuMBER £0 the Ninth Volume of 
the Monrtuty MAGAZINE, containing — A comprebenfive Retrofpelt of the Progrefs of 
Brartisn Lirerarure during the laft fix Months—and fimilar Retrofpetis of GERMANy 
FRENCH, and Spanisn LITERATURE; withInpeExes, TiTLe, &c. 

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR. 
MIDST the univerfal tafte which 
A at prefent feems to prevail in this 
country for German literature, I am alto- 
nifhed that we are in poffeffion of fcarcely 
an individual verfion of any German poet 
of claffical and approved ability in his own 
country. Of works of queftionable merit 
and ephemeral duration—of gew-gaw dra- 
mas, incoherent romances, and moft ter- 
rible ballads—we have been burdened with 
tranflations, enough to furfeit us almoft 
for ever; but, excepting Mr. Sotheby’s ad- 
mirable verfion of the Oberon of Wieland, 
I am unacquainted with any tran{pofition 
of fufferable merit into our own language, 
of a fingle German writer of claffical emi- 
nence on the Continent. Goethe, who 
has perhaps litile reafon to complain of 
the tranflation of his Iphigenia, has much 
right to be diffatisfied with that of his 
“© Sorrows of Werter.” The Idylls of 
Gefner have been transfufed with a tole- 
rable portion of fuccefs; but he has been 
fo miferably rendered in the only Englith 
verfion extant of his Death of Abel, that it 
is dificult ter a German to perfuade any 
one of our own countrymen that this beau- 
tiful and fimple poem is poffeffed of any 
merit whatfoever. Indee efner and 
Klopftok have equally a ri complain 
of the injuftice they have fufferéd from the 
crude and inadequate attempt of the late 
Mrs. Collyer, who has given the fame 
character of ftyle to poems of a ftyle 
intrinfically different in themfelves, and 
this a ftyle equally contrary to that of each 
ofthem. It is probable, however, that 
neither herfelf nor her hufband, who com- 
pleted her labours after her deceafe, was 
acquainted with the language in which 
thefe excellent poems were originally com- 
pofed, and that they only acquired their 

knowledge of them from a bombaft and: 
inflated French verfion. 
But Klopitok has even more reafon to 
complain than his friend Gefner. Gefner 
wrote in profe; and beautiful as his profe 
MONTHLY Mac. No6éz, 
is, and much as it is marred in the Eng- 
lith transfufion, it certainly cannot prés 
tend to all the beauties, nor has it, there- 
fore, met with all the misfortunes, of the 
highly finithed and elegantly varied mes 
trical compolttion of the former poet. 
With refpeét to the MEsstas, indeed, in 
this only Englifh verfion of it which is at 
prefent in our pofleffion, a perfon who has 
perufed it in the German mutt not only 
be perpetually difgufted with the abfurd 
and {tilted language which it exhibits, and 
its natural frigidity from a profe tranfpo« 
fition, but he muft find that the moft un 
warrantable liberties are inceffantly taken 
in altering the names of the perfonages in. 
troduced, and in fupprefligg whole pages 
of fuper-eminent merit. he tafk of the 
tranflator, in this latter refpeét, feems, in- 
deed, to have been peculiarly unfortunate ; 
for wherever the German bard appears to 
have laboured moft, and to have been 
more than ordinarily fuccefsful in the no- . 
velty of his metaphors, or the boldnefs and 
felicity of his language, the tranflator has 
uniformly, as through defign, either to~— 
tally omitted the paflage, or exhibited the 
dead body alone, without the animating 
{pirit. 
And yet even this folitary verfion of 
the Meffias does not extend to the whole 
compafs of the poem. When it was 
firt brought forward, Klopftok had 
compofed but the firft ten books alone, 
and of courfe no more could be moulded 
into an Englifh drefs. But I am truly 
furprifed, that the bookfellers who pub- 
lithed a new edition of this verfion only 
laft year, and added a tranflation of five 
additional books, did not complete the 
poem, which at that time had been long 
finifhed in the original, and which com- 
prifed no lefs than twenty books; of 
which the five laft are perhaps the moft 
energetic, fublinie, and meritorious of 
the whole: —fo that this admirable 
poem, by far the ‘firft in the German 
language, and probably fuperior to every 
modern epic, fave that of our own immos- 
tal 
