of conferring happiness and that to re-create, it is necessary to destroy.-But I must forbear-and not forget that there is, perhaps, something unbecoming in a translator's discussing the merits of the work with which he is too intimately connected, to be regarded as an impartial judge. Of such of the other translations of Faust as have had any effect on mine, I cannot be wholly silent. To Mr. Hayward, in common with every reader of Goethe, I feel great obligations; and his notice of the extracts from Faust which I had long ago published, gave me great gratification and demands my warmest thanks. Of Shelley I have elsewhere spoken in this Preface. I do not willingly venture on ground which he has made his own. My extracts from Faustus were published in Blackwood, before Mr. Shelley had translated any part of the poem. His translations were confined to passages not given in Blackwood it so happened, that in the progress of my intended task of translating the whole drama, I had completed the Walpurgis Night before the publication of Mr. Shelley's. I do not mention this for the purpose of vindicating myself against any resemblances between Shelley's version and mine; there are none and if there were any, this statement would be no vindication, as even while but the sheets were passing through the press, I have made alterations and corrections in this, as in other parts of the poem; but admiring as I do the particular scene in Shelley, I should, had I not already translated the passage, have hazarded asking the permission of his relatives to reprint the fragment from his poems, rather than venture on a translation myself: as it is, I think it not impossible that there may be readers to whom both translations may give pleasure. I have only to add, that many of the notes to this volume are from books not always easily accessible, and now rarely looked into. To understand the character of a student of Faustus's age, they are worth examining. My first intention was to confine myself to subjects that were likely, in their very remoteness from ordinary studies, to possess some interest. I have been led further than I intended, chiefly because I was provoked at the depreciating tone which some late writers have thought it not unbecoming to use when speaking of Goethe. A formal discussion of the merits of the work which I translate was not to be thought of by me. I have preferred adopting the plan pursued in the late editions of Byron and Scott; and showing by a few extracts from writers of high character, the effect which the poem has produced. I perhaps ought also to say, that as I wished my book to possess an interest of its own, and as I was anxious, as far as the nature of my undertaking permitted me, that the different publications on the subject of Faustus should as little as possible interfere with each other, it gratifies me to find that my notes are for the greater part derived from sources wholly different from those of Mr. Hayward and Mr. Blackie; from both of which in particular those of Mr. Hayward, who has left nothing undone - I have received much pleasure and instruction. As this volume has been for a considerable time announced, I ought to state that the whole of the translation, and the greater part of the notes, were printed before January last. The delay in the transmission of proofs between England and Ireland necessarily made the printing more tedious than if I had been resident in London. The state of political excitement was such during the whole interval, as to have made me in common with the authors of much more important works anxious to defer the publication of mine to some calmer period. That excitement still continues, and seems so unlikely to subside, that it is with considerable hesitation I venture to publish this volume- so impossible does it seem at present, even were the translation what it ought to be, to recall the public mind to any |