The boldness and abruptness of these lines as they stand, is evident; but let the reader judge whether there was any great occasion for the mutilation. The speech in the original runs nearly thus :

'Ah, no! the laurel-garland which they wove

To deck thine early bier for mine was braided,
What is this life without the light of love,-

I cast it from me, for its flower hath faded.
Yes! when I loved and felt thy love was given,
Then life indeed was something;-glittering lay
The new-born radiance of the golden day,

And life was, for an hour, a dream of Heaven.

Thou stood'st as on life's threshold newly lighted,
When first I crossed it with a maiden fear,

A thousand suns to light my path united;

And thou wert like an angel stationed near,
From childhood's fairy land to lead me forth,

On to life's eminence my guide to be;-
My first sensation was of heavenly birth,

My first fond look of love was turned to thee.
Then came the hand of Fate, and rude and cold
It grasp'd and clutch'd thee in its iron hold;-
Beneath the horses' hoofs that frame was hurl'd:
So fares it with the lovely in this world!'

But we wish not to pause upon slight mistakes, or even more important curtailments; for certainly, taken as a whole, 'The Wallenstein' of Coleridge is at once a good translation and a noble English poem.

With the exception of The Wallenstein,' however, we are not aware that any of Schiller's plays has been translated in a manner calculated to afford the slightest notion of the original. Though we have perused more than one version of the William Tell,' we may safely assert that the beauties of that fresh, vigorous, and natural play-the only tolerable attempt which has ever been made to present the rise of Swiss liberty in a poetical form, because it presents the actors in the scene in their habit as they lived,' as simple-minded peasants, free from all speculative patriotism or declamatory sentimentality-these beauties, we say, still remain quite unknown to English readers; nor can we recognise, in any of the translations of Mary Stuart' and the Maid of Orleans' we have yet met with, the dignified and nervous beauty of the former, or the rich glow of romantic enthusiasm which warms and penetrates the latter.

The Bride of Messina,' we believe, has been hitherto unattempted; nor are we surprised that it should be so, considering

its deficiency in point of mere dramatic interest, and the formidable difficulties to the translator, interposed by the lyrics of the chorus, which constitute in the original the charm of the play. Following immediately upon the Maid of Orleans,' this play is in every respect the reverse of its predecessor: instead of the stirring interest and somewhat melodramatic plot of the Jungfrau, we have in the Bride of Messina' a fable of extreme simplicity-the personages (with the exception of the mere servants and members of the chorus) reduced to five individuals—the incidents almost reducible to one, namely, the murder of Don Manuel by his jealous brother. Instead of the bustling and animated dialogue of the 'Maid of Orleans,' we have frequent soliloquies ; long lyrical passages of sublime and pensive reflection upon the fate and prospects of man; the hopes and the sorrows of life; and the uncertainty and vicissitude of all earthly grandeur. 'There is in it,' says an English critic, with truth and beauty, ‘a breath of young tenderness and ardour mingled impressively with the feelings of grey-haired experience, whose recollections are darkened with melancholy, whose very hopes are checkered and solemn. The implacable destiny which consigns the brothers to mutual enmity and mutual destruction for the guilt of a past 'generation, involving a mother and sister in their ruin, spreads • a sombre hue over all the poem. We are not unmoved by the characters of the hostile brothers, and we pity the hapless and ' amiable Beatrice, the victim of their feud. Still there is too little action in the piece-the incidents are too abundantly diluted with reflection-the interest pauses, flags, and fails to produce its full effect. For its specimens of lyrical poetrytender, affecting, sometimes exquisitely beautiful-the "Bride of Mesina" will long deserve a careful perusal; but, as exemplifying a new form of the drama, it has found no imitators, and is likely to find none.'

We regard Mr Irvine's translation of this fine poem-for a tragedy it can scarcely be called-as a highly creditable and, on the whole, successful attempt to convey to the English reader an idea of this choral drama. Not that it by any means satisfies our notions of a good translation; for it errs occasionally, and particularly in the choruses, on the score of stiffness or harshness of versification, while in the dialogue, there is sometimes an introduction of needless epithets for which there is no warrant in the original. Great allowance, however, must be made for the difficulty of the subject; and giving effect to this consideration, we think we should be disposed to place it, as a specimen of German translation, next to the very beautiful translation of

Faust' by Dr Anster. Generally speaking, Mr Irvine has been most successful in the dialogue which is in blank verse: this portion of his version is always vigorous, and often highly poetical. In the lyrics, we admit, blemishes are much more frequent; the metrical cadences of the original are often very imperfectly imitated; and an air of stiffness and ruggedness hangs over them which too obviously betrays the constraint under which the translator has laboured.

The plot of the piece, so far as a knowledge of it is necessary to render intelligible the passages we are about to extract, may be given in a very short space. Don Cesar and Don Manuel, the sons of the Prince of Messina, have been alienated from each other, even from infancy, by a mutual feeling of hostility, which has been artfully encouraged by their followers. Their mother, Isabella, by an appeal to their filial affection for herself, succeeds in effecting a temporary reconciliation between them. In the warm flow of confidence that follows, each of the brothers avows to Isabella that he has formed a secret attachment; the mother, in her turn, reveals to her sons that, unknown to them, they have a sister who, in order to avoid some evil augury with which the royal race of Messina was threatened, had been in infancy removed from the court, and educated in the stillness of the cloister. It is easy to foresee from the first that this long-lost sister, and the object of the secret passion of both brothers, are the same; and that out of this ominous combination nothing but death and misery can result. Beatrice, the innocent and ignorant daughter, had in her cloistered residence become acquainted with Don Manuel, of whose rank and even name she is ignorant; and, following the devoted impulse of a first love, has consented to follow him in secret to Messina.

Don Manuel, in an interview with his follower Cajetan, informs him that he has placed her in a retired abode near to the convent of the Misericordia; from which it is his immediate intention to bring her forth and present her, 'high uplifted to a royal throne, 'before the subject eyes of all Messina.' He proceeds, in the following beautiful passage, to which great justice has been done by Mr Irvine,

'Come on! hence will we to the throng'd bazaar

Where the dusk Moor, in bright temptation ranged,
Exhibits all the Morning-land can boast

Of wealthy stuffs, and cunning handiwork.
First choose the pliant sandal to defend
And ornament her fairy-moulded foot;
Then for her robe select the subtlest web

From India's loom, clear glancing like the snow
Of Etna, that beams nearest to the light;
And circumfuse it like the dews of morning
Around the taper structure of her limbs.
Of purple be the zone, with crafty threads
Of gold emboider'd, which unites the tunic
O'er the coy beauties of her virgin bosom―
And choose the mantle glittering with the texture
Of tenderest silk, and like purpurean dye.
Upon her shoulder let a golden locust
Loop its full foldings; nor forget the clasps
That circle the round marble of her arms;
Nor the red coral, nor the liquid pearl,
The wondrous gifts of hoary Ocean's goddess.
Amid her ringlets wind the diadem
Hewn from the costliest quarries of the mine :
Wherein the fire-effusing ruby's gleam
Shall cross its lightnings with the green smaragdus.
Down from her cluster'd locks let the long veil
Depending deep, embrace her glittering form,
And float around it like a cloud of light,
And with the virgin myrtle's circlet, crown
́The accomplish'd beauty of her peerless form.'

Beatrice herself is introduced to us standing in a garden looking out upon the Mediterranean, and awaiting with feelings of anxiety, and almost of despondency, the arrival of her princely lover. The monologue in which she expresses these feelings is one of the finest passages of the play, and it has been very fairly rendered by Mr Irvine. We regret, however, that he should not have conformed to the measure of the original, in which the full resounding octave produces so fine an effect. We shall take the liberty, therefore, of attempting the three opening stanzas in the same form of versification which Schiller has adopted :

:

BEATRICE (enters from a parlour, and after listening some time,
anxiously speaks.)

It is not he, 'twas but the breezes' sound

Through the tall summits of the pine-trees sweeping.

The sun already stoops him to his bound;

With leaden pace the heavy hours are creeping.

I tremble as I gaze on all around

This wide and moveless silence round me sleeping:

I look, but nothing living meets mine eye;

And yet he leaves me here to pine and die.

'And near, as when the tempest stirs the tree,
The many-peopled city's hum is swelling;
The hollow thunder of the far-off sea,

Dull beating on the shore beneath is knelling:

This might of nature feels too vast for me;

Forlorn and helpless in this fearful dwelling ;-
Ah! homeless as the leaf that winds have blown
To earth,-in this wide world I stand alone.

Ah! why did he persuade me to forsake

The home where thoughtless and serene he found me;
My heart slept peaceful as an inland lake,

Though few my wants, pure joys were ever round me.

But now before the wind the waves awake,

The world within its giant grasp hath wound me,

And on the feeble tenure of a vow,

A lover's oath, my hope is anchored now.'

At the close of the monologue, which is of considerable length, she hears the sound of approaching footsteps, and hurries to throw herself into the arms of her lover. Instead of Don Manuel, however, it is Don Cesar who enters the garden ;Don Cesar, who, at the funeral of his father, had seen her in the Cathedral of Messina (which she had been allowed on that occasion to visit), and had conceived for her a passion of the most sudden and vehement nature. Its origin is described in the following beautiful scene with his mother and his brother, Don Manuel, which has also been very successfully translated by Mr Irvine:

'Twas at my father's solemn funeral:

Mix'd with the crowd, as well thou know'st, disguised
Our rank and state, in common weeds we stood;-
Such orders had thy wise discretion issued,

Lest our obtrusive hate with wild confusion

Should mar the solemn order of the rites.

With gloomy crape was tapestried the vault

Of the high chapel-twenty sculptured cherubs
With flickering torches stood around the altar
'Fore which the death-bier, heaved aloft and shadow'd
By the pall's white embroider'd cross, reposed.
And on that pall incumbent lay the staff
Of domination, and the princely crown,
Fair knighthood's ornament, the golden spurs,
And with its jewel-gleaming zone, the sword.

All lay in hush'd devotion, humbly bending,
When pealing from aloft, invisible,
The organ rain'd its solemn influence down,
And hundred-voiced the holy song began.
And, while the roofs still echo'd, the cold bier,
With its supporting platform, slow descended,
Deep sinking to the unknown world beneath.
But the vast pall with wide-extended folds
O'ershadowing hid the sepulchre's dark mouth,