original. This opinion, injurious as it is to the honesty of the translator, we assure them is altogether unfounded. The following passages may give an idea of the comparative merits of Mr. Coleridge and his rival. The speech of the elder Piccolomini, beginning, "Mein Sohn! Lass uns die altem engen Ordnungen," &c. is rendered thus:

My son of those old narrow ordinances

Let us not hold too lightly. They are weights
Of priceless value, which oppress'd mankind
Tied to the volatile will of their oppressors.
For always formidable was the league
And partnership of free power with free will.
The way of ancient ordinance, tho' it winds,
Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path
Of the cannon ball. Direct it flies, and rapid,

Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches.

My son the road the human being travels,

That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow
The river's course, the valley's playful windings
Twines round the cornfield and the hill of vines,
Honouring the holy bounds of property,

And thus secure, though late, leads to its end.

The anonymous translator renders the same passage thus:—
My Son! despise not these old narrow forms,
Precious, invaluable weights are they,

With which oppress'd mankind have over hung
The tyrannizing will of their oppressors:
For arbitrary power was ever terrible.

The way of order, though it lead through windings,
Is still the best. Right forward goes the lightning,
Straight cleaves the cannon ball its murd'rous way:
Quick by the nearest course it gains its goal,
Destructive in its path and in its purpose.

My son! the peaceful track which men frequent,
The path where blessings most are scattered, follows
The river's course, the valley's gentle bendings
Encompasses the cornfield and the vineyard,
Revering property's appointed bounds,

And leading slow, but surely, to the mark.

The following passage in Coleridge's translation may be reckoned among the finest pieces of poetry in the language, even though the commencement recalls to us, "Duncan is in his grave," &c. Wallenstein is musing on the appearances of the planets, after the death of the younger Piccolomini.

He is more fortunate! Yea, he hath finished:
For him there is no longer any future.
His life is bright; bright without spot it was,
And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour
Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap.

Far off is he above desire and fear;

No more submitted to the change and chance

Of the unsteady planets. O'tis well

With him! But who knows what the coming hour
Veiled in thick darkness brings for us!

* This is a variation of the metre, in introducing which Coleridge follows the example

of Schiller himself.

As from the vilest thing of every day
He weans himself: for the strong hours
Conquer him. Yet I feel what I have lost
In him. The bloom is vanished from my life,
For O! he stood beside me like my youth,
Transform'd for me the real to a dream,
Cloathing the palpable and the familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
Whatever fortunes wait my future toils,
The beautiful is vanished and returns not.

After this translation, which (if we pardon the omission of five lines-lines overloading rather than aiding the ideas,) is as faithful as it is poetical; the version of the anonymous translator would leave an impression less favourable than his work, taken as a whole, would justify. The reflection

Denn ihn besiegen die gewalt'gen Stunden, which Coleridge renders so faithfully yet forcibly

Conquer him

For the strong hours

is converted into a common-place

From things most dear

Even as from things most common, is he wean'd

By the omnipotence of circumstance.

The conclusion of the passage is almost as unhappy.
The beautiful is vanished and returns not;

(Das schöne ist doch weg, das komm't nicht wieder!)

is flattened into

The dream of life is gone that comes no more.

The two concluding lines of this speech are omitted in Mr. Coleridge's; and it would have been better for the anonymous translator also to have omitted them, than to have treated them as he has done. The original verses are characteristic of the poet, and the English ones are a fair specimen of the manner in which the flowers of German sentiment are bruised by the hard hands of a translator. Schiller says

Deun über alles Glück geht doch der Freund
Der's fühlend erst erschafft der's theilend mehrt:

Of which the meaning is this: "For a friend still exceeds all the favour of fortune-a friend who first creates our happiness by feeling itwho increases it by sharing it." The translator gives it as follows:-} For what are Fortune's gifts without the friend

Who feels our joy and doubles while he shares it.

The unhappy Germans, under the hands of translators, suffer a fate which people, who strive to be profound or subtle in society, often fall under. After they have flattered themselves that they have enounced a truth at once delicate and novel, a cursed explanatory friend supervenes, who by a slight alteration of the terms, and a more lucid arrangement of the proposition, turns with great complacency the supposed discovery into a truism. Thus it is, that not unfrequently German authors dread translation into a language, in which it is difficult to keep the proper medium between the flat and the unintelligible.

The alterations which he supposes the author to have made subsequently to the translation of Coleridge, are not sufficient to justify

another, and an inferior, version; and are, indeed, when we consider that neither part of Wallenstein is likely to be acted in its present shape in England, quite insignificant; for the principal change is a mere transfer of many scenes from the end of the Peccolomini, to the beginning of the death of Wallenstein. We wish the writer had undertaken some other play of Schiller; he has a fair talent for versification, and shows a competent knowledge of the German language; (though not always of the German mode of thinking ;) and as he is superior to the common herd of translators, we are sorry that we have been compelled to compare him with one still more superior to himself.

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.*

THE Living and the Dead is written by one certainly not destined to die a country curate. The author has too much talent, too much pliancy, too much of that most correct and inoffensive kind of orthodoxy, which is always held a paramount recommendation to preferment. Were he raised to rank in his profession, he would always be found on the respectable side of power-no fanaticism would disturb the decorum of his life-no impertinent zeal give unnecessary trouble in high quarters. There is a certain quantity of intellect, which, though it does not enable a man to see too deep, prevents him from appearing shallow; there is a certain worldly sense of the immediately useful, which prevents a man from involving himself in difficulties and labyrinths from which he cannot escape with a good grace; there is a certain love of order and respect for opinion, which guarantees a society from scandal; there is a certain reverence for authority, and rank, and power, which almost unconsciously hoodwinks the observer when he turns his attention to the sources of advancement. When these valuable qualities meet in a churchman, and when they are combined with a moderate portion of industry, learning, and outward piety, the individual may be expected, in due time, on the cross benches of the Upper House. It strikes us, that in the visions of the author of the Living and the Dead, the sweets of preferment are sometimes typified to his mind's eye in the form of a mitre:

-Oh royal object!

M. Thou dream'st awake: object in the empty air?

D.

Worthy the brows of Titan-worth his chair.

M. Pray thee what mean'st thou?

D. See you not a mitre-empale the forehead of the great Doctor.

The Living and the Dead, though a regularly professional book, and though it is but too evident all through, that the author exercises a judicious discernment in the distribution of praise and blame, is not on the whole a disagreeable work. The chief excellence of the writer is not a clerical merit: he has a talent for humorous description. His perception of the ridiculous is somewhat fine; and the management of his materials evidently indicates a practised hand.

The Living and the Dead. By a Country Curate. London, Charles Knight, 1827.

This may be his first volume, but is not his hundredth composition for the press.

The writer is manifestly a Cambridge man, and certainly not of an old standing. He probably took his bachelor's degree about the year 1819 or 20. His allusions to the University and its arcana, are constant; and no one but a Cambridge man will fully relish them.

A great part of the volume is serious, and turns on some of the more melancholy duties of a parish priest. There is also a due portion of decorous piety-a very sufficient infusion of cant-and a great deal of one-sided argumentation. From this view of the work, we turn with pleasure to the more amusing part, where, if we judge aright, the writer is much more in earnest, than when he deems it proper to raise his eyes, clasp his hands, and ejaculate odds and ends of his breviary. This peeping out of the real Simon will be more carefully concealed in future writings, when his fate arrives nearer the crisis.

paper

It is difficult to say what the Living and the Dead really is. It is not a novel-it is not a volume of sermons-it is not an ecclesiastical Spectator-it is not a collection of essays, nor a bundle of letters of advice, direction, and consolation. Books are now-a-days compounded of such miscellaneous materials, that it is difficult to find a name for some of them. It may afford some notion of these to say, that they are akin to papers or articles in a magazine. My first Parish, the first paper for instance, is a sketch of the author's feelings on taking possession of his first curacy, of the more remarkable characters of the parish, and a diary of some of the professional visits he made in his capacity of spiritual comforter. Next follows Sermonizing, which discloses the necessities, difficulties, and appliances of clergymen not accustomed to composition. The third is entitled Mr. Benson: this contains a criticism of this gentleman's preaching, and some sketch of his character and life. Love Matches consists of two historiettes, controverting the prejudices entertained against contracts whose basis is simply love. The Wages of Sin is a violent and improbable story of a youth who saw his elder brother tumble into the water, and suffered him to perish without making an effort to save him-the Wages of this Sin are the tortures of his conscience and the elopement of his wife. A glimpse of Joanna Baillie is a little blue-stocking revelation-akin to many publications of private life that have lately taken place: this line is again taken up in making certain disclosures and comments on Lady Byron and her late husband. This part of the book has called forth an angry letter in the newspapers, signed, " A Relation of Lady Byron ;" and dated, Christ's College, Cambridge. A postscript of this letter attributes the authorship of this volume to Archdeacon Nares. The venerable archdeacon, by return of post, "contradicted the same." Of a similar character with the writer's criticism or sketch of Mr. Benson, is the paper on Mr. Rennel—a fragment, and Archdeacon Daubeny. The Sorrows of a Rich Old Man is a very clever diary of an elderly gentleman in a boarding-house on the Devonshire coast. The Riches of the Church is an attempt to prove, that the riches of the church are in fact poverty. This is very logically attempted, by citing in detail the immense number of poor curacies.

There are

other papers which we have not named. We shall, however, now proceed to make some selections of the parts which appear to us the best and most amusing.

The author, arguing against a very prevailing notion that the Church of England is a wealthy establishment, quotes several cases of extreme poverty, and confined means in curates, which are doubtless a scandal to any well-governed community.

I.

"I remain in circumstances similar to those of last year, though not exactly in all points the same, for a gracious God has sent me an increase of family. Though Mrs. has been the mother of thirteen, I cordially welcome the last, and as it is a boy I give him [back again] to his God. I have a family of eleven persons to support,!! in a most expensive situation, upon 130l. per annum-the whole amount of my income."

"I am still curate of

II.

have a wife and ten children!! [a gracious God again!] seven of whom are wholly dependent on me. My curacy is barely fifty pounds per annum; five of my little ones have had the typhus fever, and my medical attendant's bill has been unusually heavy." Any symptoms of "overgrown wealth" here? and curate equally distressed-the latter in the wages!

III.

In the next case we find incumbent receipt of a third-rate journeyman's

"My incumbent, with a large family, continues to be very poor, which, unfortunately for me, involves me in difficulties. Of forty pounds, my nominal income, I have received no more than half during the last twelve months. four young children dependent on me."

IV.

I have a wife and

"Imperious necessity alone could induce me again to appeal to the society; but my stipend is quite inadequate to the support of my family, and my inability to discharge some debts, contracted solely on this account, preys upon my mind, and creates a care and anxiety to the last degree painful and distressing. My income is eighty pounds, on which I have nine little claimants."

Exactly eight pounds annually for each person! The next case will exhibit a clergyman receiving a mere pauper's parish pay.

V.

—“With great reluctance I state my circumstances. My whole income from the church is only twenty pounds per annum, including the surplice fees, which do not amount to five pounds! I have a wife and six children, four of whom are entirely dependent on me for support. I have no other income."

Six human beings to be fed, clothed, and sheltered, on twenty-five pounds annually, or nine shillings and sevenpence weekly!! Why the veriest hedger and ditcher would scorn it!

It pourtrays the

The last case is a sad but appropriate sequel to the whole. clergyman of the Church of England applying for relief to the parish.

"I am curate of

VI.

containing about two thousand persons; eight hundred of whom attend divine service. My salary is fifty-two pounds per annum, with a wife and sir children dependent on me. I have no private income of my own whatever. Within the last two years my family have been so reduced as to be forced to seek the aid of the parish!"

In these cases, nothing is more striking than the uniformly large families which, according to their own phraseology, a gracious God has given these poor men. Since the natural consequences of marriage are children, and since nothing can be more certain by the income of these unfortunate clergymen, and others similarly situated, we presume, that they may be charged with a culpable improvidence in contracting an engagement which must involve themselves and others in misery. The Rev. Mr. Malthus and his brethren in political economy, make no exception in their laws for the children of the church.