To meet me with some signal of affection. Amidst my dreams. The throng was great. A shot The thunder of their hoofs, all torn and trampled. It was OCTAVIO'S. Sudden I awoke: 'Twas dawn; and there OCTAVIO stood before me. 'The dappled horse, as thou wert wont; mount rather Grant me this favour-'twas a dream that warn'd me.' Is my good angel.-So no more of this.'--vol. ii., pp. 61-64. This a very fair specimen of the translator's powers. We have praised his version for its literal accuracy, but we must not quit him without a hint that he carries this virtue sometimes a little too far. Thus, in the Piccolomini (act II. scene 7), Wallenstein says, 'Und sein sold Muss dem Soldaten werden, darnach heisst er.' Which our translator renders, And his pay The soldier must have-even his name denotes it.' Forgetting that in English his name does not denote it: the play of words being, in the German, on sold and soldaten, as in French it might have been on solde and soldat. Sometimes too, this close following of his author gives a feebleness to the expression, from which the original is free-as in the indignant remonstrance of Max Piccolomini to his perfidious father: 'Wärs möglich vater? vater? hättest dus Wert possible! father, father! if thou could'st Have led him on--his fall would be thy rising, I like not that, Octavio.'-vol. ii., p. 86. The sense of the concluding line is the same, but the expression 'I like not that', which, in the German words does not want either dignity or rhythm, is, in English, deplorably tame; and after the burst of passion, has a strange sound of the bathos. We could point to many little blemishes of the same nature but these are after all but "specks i' the sun." We notice them only because we trust this is not the last translation from the dramas of Schiller, for which we may hope from the same pen. The repetition of such petty faults will be easily avoided: and we know of no English translator better capable of rendering a worthy homage to that German bard, who, of all foreign dramatists, has caught most of the inspiration of Shakspeare. ART. III. Resumé de l'histoire de la Littérature Francaise, depuis son origine jusque a nos jours. 12mo. pp. 441. London: Treüttel & Wurtz. ABOUT three years ago, some literary gentlemen in France announced their intention to publish, in about twenty-five consecutive duodecimo volumes, the literary history of the Jews, the Arabs, the Persians, the Indians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Romans, the ancient Greeks, the modern Greeks, the Latin writers of the middle ages, the Italians, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Provençals, the French, the English, the Scots, the Germans, the Danes, the Dutch, the Flemish, the Swedes, the Russians, and the Poles. We have received their Resumé of French, Italian, and German literature; and shall now present to our readers a succinct account of the first of the three. The history of French, Italian, and German literature ascends to Charlemagne. His empire consisted of the part of Spain which lies between the Ebro and the Pyrenees; of the part of Germany, which lies between the Rhine and the Oder; of the Gauls, or the countries between the ocean, the Pyrenees, and the Rhine; of the greatest part of the Austrian possessions on the southern side of the Danube; and of the whole of Italy, from the Alps to Benevento. By the treaty of Verdun, in 842, his empire was divided among his three sons, Lothaire, Lewis the German, and Charles the Bold. Lothaire preserved the title of emperor, the kingdom of Italy, with all the countries between the Rhone, the Saone, the Meuse, the Scheld, the Rhine, and the Alps; Lewis took all Germany, from the Rhine to the Oder, and the cantons of Mentz, Spires, and Wormes: the part of France, which lies between the Scheld, the Meuse, the Saone, the Rhone, and the Pyrenees, with that portion of Spain lying between the Pyrenees and the Ebro, was assigned to Charles. The territory of Lothaire was called the kingdom of Italy; that of Lewis was called the kingdom of Germany; that of Charles the Bold was called the kingdom of France. In each of these three grand territorial divisions, two languages were spoken; in all, the Latin was the language of the church, of the courts of justice, and of diplomacy; in Germany, the Teutonic or German was the general language of the people; in Italy, the people spoke a debased Latin, with a large interpolation of German words; in France, they spoke a mixture of Celtic, the original language of the country; of Latin, the language of their Roman conquerors, and of German, the language of their barbarian invaders. By degrees it was purged entirely from the latter, and partially from the former. Thus refined, it was called the Romande. It was divided into two dialects-that of the Oe was spoken on the southern, and that of the Oil was spoken on the northern side of the Loire. The former was the language of the Provençal poets; the latter that of the Normans. The former was principally employed in tales of love and gallantry; the latter in celebrating deeds of arms. An account of the former is reserved by the writer of the work before us, for the subject of a future Resumé. The literature of France may be distributed into four periods: that which preceded the sixteenth century-that which intervened between it and the reign of Louis XIV. the period of his reignand the period subsequent to it. The work before us treats of all those periods. We shall confine our critique to what is said in it of the two first of them; the literature of the two last being, as we suppose, familiar to all our readers, and leading to particulars too numerous and minute to be noticed in the present article. In the period which preceded the 16th century, the university was founded, and the seat of government was fixed, at Paris, which attracted to that city the attention of every part of France, and insensibly produced an uniformity of idiom throughout the Gallic territory. From this time, the difference of the languages of the Oe and the Oil ceased to be discernible; and the French language, properly so called, though still in a very rough state, and with some variations of dialect, became, from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, the universal language of the nation. It appeared in a multitude of lays, irrelays, triolets, rondeaus, fables, ballets, canzonets, romances, and several other forms of poetical composition. Many of these have reached us-they sometimes charm by simplicity and tenderness, by exquisite touches of nature, and comic and playful turns; but insipidity too often prevails among them. From these, however, the literature of France arose. As a specimen of the best among them, we shall transcribe the following description by Martial d'Auvergne, in his " Vigiles de Charles VII." of the first VOL. V. 2 K interview between that Monarch and the celebrated Maid of Orleans. Tost après, en cette douleur, Vint au roi une bergerelle Qu'on nomnait Jehan la Pucelle. C'etoit une povre bergiere, 'Devant le roi on l'amena Une ou deux de sa connoisance, Et allors elle s'inclina, En lui faisant la révérence : Le roy par jeu si alla dire, " A poet might require finer verses, but a historian would be satisfied with the conciseness and accuracy of the narrative. One of the most eminent bards of this period, was Alexander, of Paris. He was the author of a continuation of a poem of 'Lambert le Cours,' on the exploits of Alexander the Great. He composed it in verses of twelve syllables: this mode of versification was soon generally adopted, and received the name of the Alexandrine verse, either from him, or from the hero of his poem. It has retained its appellation to our time; in France it has been exclusively appropriated to heroic or serious poetry; from this, it was at first banished by the English muse, and only admitted into gay and jocular poems; but of late it has been frequently adopted with success in the philosophical, and even in loftier poetry. The reign of St. Lewis abounded with poets; several were illustrious for their birth; as Charles of Anjou, his Majesty's brother, afterwards King of Naples and Sicily; Henry, Duke of Brabant; Peter Mauclerc Count of Britany; Raoul Count of Soissons; Thibault Count of Champagne, and afterwards King of Navarre. Some poems of the last of these bards have reached us. We possess many of Alain Chartiers. History has mentioned the unpleasantness of his outward appearance; but his wit and manners made him always a favourite at court. Bouchet, in bis annals of Aquitaine relates, that Margaret of Scotland, then the wife of the Dauphin, who was afterwards Lewis XI., passing through a room, in which Alain Chartier was asleep in a chair, approached him and kissed him. One of her attendants expressing his surprise at it, "I did not," she said to him, "kiss the man; but the mouth from which so many witty words and virtuous sayings have proceeded." William of Loris, and John of Meun, have been more celebrated: they owe their fame to the Roman de la Rose. This far excelled all the French compositions in poetry, by which it was preceded. French writers agree in pronouncing it the greatest effort of the French muse, before the reign of Francis I. It describes a dream of the author. He fancied himself walking in the most delicious of meadows, adjoining a garden, laid out in exquisite taste, and abounding with the choisest fruits and flowers. He observed in it a rose of surprising beauty, and determined to obtain the possession of it. But he met with many obstacles; bridges, ramparts, ditches, and bastions. The garden was filled with good and evil divinities: love, kind-welcome, pity, and openheart, were among the former; hypocrisy, danger, slander, and jealousy, were among the latter. But he triumphed over every obstacle, and obtained the rose. If France produced, before the revival of letters, any poem that can be compared to those of Chaucer, it is this renowned romance. But we must assert the superiority of our countryman. We may concede that, in imagination, in the picturesque, and in the personification of allegorical beings, the French and English bards are equal; but, in describing the feelings and manners of real life, Chaucer has a clear superiority. In the period of which we are now speaking, the drama first appeared in France. During the reign of Charlemagne, and his royal descendants, spectacles of different kinds were displayed at the feasts of the great and the assemblies of the people. Beasts brought from foreign countries, feats of agility, wrestling and dancing, were exhibited; harpers, and slight-of-hand-men also attended the meetings, and shewed their skill. Chivalry introduced into these shews, order, refinement, and magnificence: it is probable that the tilts and tournaments of the middle ages, excelled whatever modern times have produced in the form of public spectacle. To them we owe the revival of science and art*. The bards and minstrels often appeared at them in companies, and recited tragic or comic poems. By degrees they formed them into dialogues; and, to render them more interesting, put on a dress, and assumed a gait which they supposed to be similar to those of the persons, whose characters they represented. From this, the passage to an exhibition, possessing all the essential requisites of a scenic entertainment, was easy. Nothing could be more congenial than these, to the taste and manners of a chivalrous age. They soon acquired reputation, and attained a certain See Butler's Life of Bossuet, ch. v. |