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    Together , as two eagles on one prey-Come rushing down together from the clouds , One from the east , one from the west : their shields Dash'd with a clang together , and a din Hose , such as that the sinewy woodcutters Make often in the forest ' s heart at morn , Of hewing axes , crashing trees : such blows Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd . And you would say that sun and stars took part In that unnatural conflict ; for a cloud Grew suddenly in Heaven , and dark'd the sun Over the fighters' heads ; and a wind rose Under their feet , and moaning swept the plain , And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair . In gloom they twain were wrapp'd , and they alone ; 3 ? or both the on- looking hosts on either hand Stood in broad daylight , and the sky was pure , And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream . But in the gloom they fought , with bloodshot eyes And labouring breath ; first Rustum struck the shield Which Sohrab held stiff out : the steel-spik'd spear Bent the tough plates , but fail'd to reach the skin , And Rustum pluek'd it back with angry groan . Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum ' s helm , Nor clove its steel quite through ; but all the crest He shore away , and that proud horsehair plume , Never till now defil'd , sunk to the dust ; And Rustum bow'd his head ; but then the gloom Grew blacker : thunder rumbled in the air , And lightnings rent the cloud ; and Ruksh , the horse , Who stood at hand , utter'd a dreadful cry : No horse's cry was that , most like the roar Of some pain'd desert lion , who all da y Has traiUd the hunter ' s javelin in his side , And comes at night to die upon the sand : — The two hosts heard that cry , and quak'd for fear , And Oxus curdled as it cross'd his stream . But Sohrab heard , and quail'd not , but rush'd on , And struck again ; and again Rustum bow'd His head ; but this time aU the blade , like glass , Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm , And in his hand the hilt remam'd alone . Then Rustum rais'd his head : his dreadful eyes Crlar'd , and he shook on high his menacing spear , And Bhouted , Rustum J Sohrab heard that shout , And shrank amaz'd : back he recoil'd one step , And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing Form : And then he stood bewilder'd ; and he dropp'd His covering shield , and the spear pierc'd his side . He reel ' d , and staggering back , sunk to the ground . And then the gloom dispers'd , and the wind fell , And the bright sun broke forth , and melted all The cloud ; and the two armies saw the pair ; Saw Rustum standing safe upon his feet , And Sohrab , wounded , on the bloody sand . " Then comes the avayv&piais , the terrible discovery of parentage , and the poem closes with the grandeur of a setting sun : — "So , on the bloody sand , Sohrab lay dead . And the great Rustum drew his horseman ' s cloak Down o ' er his face , and sate by his dead son . As those black granite pillars , once high-reared By Jemsid in Persepolis , to bear His house , now , mid their broken flights of stepa , Lie prone , enormous , down the mountain side—So in the sand lay Rustum by his son . '' And night came down over the solemn waste , And the two gazing hosts , and that aole pair , And darken'd all ; and ; i cold fog , with night , Crept from the Oxus . Soon a hum arose , As of a great assembly loos'd , and fires Began to twinkle through the fog-: for now Both armies mov'd to camp , and took their meal ; The Persians took it on the open sands Southward ; the Tartars by the river marge : And Rustum and his son wore left alone . "But the majestic Bivcr floated on , Out of the iniat and hum of that low land , Into the frosty starlight , and there mov'd , Jii ' joieing , through the hics / t'd Ohoramuan waste , Under the solitary moon : ho flowed Itight for the Polar Star , past Orgunjo , Mrimming , and bright , and large .- then sands begin To horn Iuh watery march , and dam his stream ?) , And uplit his currents ; that for many a loaguo The whom and parcoll ' d Oxuh strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— Oxuh , forgetting tho bright speed ho had In Inn high mountain oradio in Panioro , A foil'd circuitous wanderer : —till at last The long'd-for da « h of wavcn is hoard , and wide j Ilia luminous home of waters opens , bright > I And tranquil , from , whose Jloor the new-bath'd stars I ¦ Kmergc , and shine , upon the A rat * SV « . " J ¦ ' * ' will bo confessed Mini ; tin ' s is far from ordinary writing . Tho poom , "flood , i « no (; an ordinary production ; but wo should have an easy tank ° snow that its excellencies arc not derived from tho Greek , although { ° f ¦ **'" < l < 'foets are . Morn than this , its defects are often the more "lecliH of rude art , which are copied from Homer ; such , for example , as j r lC ) | » K 5 tico of conducting tho narrative through lengthy Himilios , olubo- J u < oly circumstantial , positively retarding and encumbering what they are I ^ Njant to accelerate and lighten . If Homer lived in our days ho would j ot write liko Homer ' s imitators . In I ' act the mistake of all imitation is I ¦ » ' «; it naturally fastens on the ileoting modes , and not on tho eternal I

    Criticism might also have something to say in other directions , if this poem were to be closely scrutinised . " We point , in passing , to such prosaisms as " fate" treading . _ something or other down , with an " iron heel , " and to such mistaken familiarities of illustration as those at p . 20 and p . 47 . But we need not dwell on them . Our purpose is gained if we have directed the reader ' s attention to an ¦ unequal but delightful volume of poems , and if we have , at the same time , indicated the real position which the poet-is to hold , with respect to both Ancients and Moderns .

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    MISS MARTINEAU'S TRANSLATION OF COMTE . The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte . Freely Translated and Condensed by Harriet Martineau . In 2 vols . Price 16 s . John Chapman . Chapman ' s " Quarterly Series" receives an unexpected and most welcome addition in this translation of the opus magnum of our century ; and the world at large has reason to be grateful to all concerned in this publication ; for , whatever the reputation of an author , there are not many students who could be induced to read with the requisite attention six volumes containing four thousand seven hundred and twenty pages of cumbrous French . Into two volumes , containing one thousand and for ty paeres , these

    six volumes are compressed . We make this comparison of bulk , ( fallacious though , it really is , from the much , more solid page of the English work ) to indicate one material point of attractiveness possessed by Miss Martineau ' s publication : the student whom six volumes have warned off , will be eager to attack two . Nor will he lose much in the omitted matter ; he will lose illustrations and details which make the ideas clearer , and repetitions which make them by emphasis more directly effective ; he will have to bring more knowledge and more labour of his own ; but these demands we regard as insignificant beside the fact that the two volumes will be read when the six would not .

    Miss Martineau has confined herself rigorously to the task of translating freely and condensing the work , adding nothing of illustration or criticism ; so that the reader feels he has Comte ' s views , presented as Comte promulgated them . This was the wisest course : it gives the reader confidence , and it removes the very natural misgiving as to the competence of Miss Martineau to reproduce a philosophy of the physical sciences . We will confess that until we saw the method she had adopted , we shared the misgivings so generally expressed . Our misgivings are changed into

    approbation . We cannot possibly tell , cannot even surmise , what the efiect of her condensation will be upon the reader who approaches the work for the first time , our own familiarity with the original renders it impossible for us to test this point of execution , but it enables us to say , that at any rate Comte ' s views are there , without suppression of important considerations , with only such omissions as the very fact of abridgment implies . Indeed , in the whole range of philosophy , we know of no such successful abridgment .

    The sections on Mathematics , Astronomy , and Physics , have been carefully revised by Professor Nichol , who a dds a few brief notes . We regret that similar aid was not sought in the sections on Chemistry and Biology ; there are several passages which are obscure and even inaccurate , solely because the translator has not had the benefit of such indispensable revision . However delicate a task it may be for us to point out sli g ht defects in this work , it is our duty , and we must not shrink from it , lest our very praise be suspected . In a second edition wo may hope these two sections will have the benefit of revision , and some notes from persons thoroughly acquainted with the sciences . A specimen

    or two of the passages which we noted in a cursory reading , will sutlice to point to what we mean . At vol . i ., p . 375 , we read , " Thus the theory of analogous existences which has been offered as a recent innovation , is only the necessary principle of the comparative method under a new name . " Pew would understand that this " theory of analogous existences" is the celebrated thdoric des analogues with which Geolfroy St . Hilaire created an epoch in philosophic ! anatomy . The phrase points to tho existence of analogous organs in different animals ; and as it is a phrase-which , liko tho " Nebular Hypothesis , " points to a specific conception , it should bo retained , and a note of a line or so added to inform tho reader thereof .

    j I I I | I J I I I A line or two of rectification ought also to be added in tho shape of I notes to various passages , —e . g ., whore Comte , unacquainted with tho I history of tho vertebral theory of the skull , attributes its discovery to I de Bhiinville , who came after Goethe , Oken , Spix , and Bojanus without I improving on them . I At p . 401 we read , "It ia apparently strange that after Bichat ' s dis-I covery , comparative anatomists , with ' Cuvier at their haul , . should havo J persisted in stud ying organic apparatus in its complex . state . " This ia misleading . Cuvier did not study the " organic apparatus , " but the apparatus of each function , i . e ., in the group oi organs {< ippare . il ) constituting tho functional apparatus . The French word 7 ms no single equivalent in I our language .

    I I I It is in such pointa as theso that an experienced eye would see the necessity for revision ; as also in matters o \ ' terminology . A reader ' s Greek would be ; puzzled by arliozoaires , imtfucozoaires , osleozoaircs , I cutomozoaircs , unless ho suspected that h ' s old . friends u > a , were hero undergoing the transformation which Tile . Live , I ' j / thagore , tfpeu . sippc , and others of the goodly company of classics , havo undergone . We are dwelling upon ( rides , but not without tho hope that such microscopic criticism will be of use ; ji . ssurod . ly not with any desire- to make the general excellence of the execution imputed because of . such details . There are probably only some half-dozen men in the country who could have produced a condensation of these flections on science without being open to criticism of the kind .

    i \ I'Yom the dignified preface wo extract ; two passages . In the- first aho adduces one of the reasons which made her undertake tho task : — "Tho Huprumo dread of ovory one who oaros for tho good of nation or raco in that inon nhould bo adrift for want , of an anchorugo for their ( lonvictioiiB T boliove that no imo <) ueationn that it very largo proportion of our people nro now mo

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    December 3 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1171

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 3, 1853, page 1171, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2015/page/19/