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Leader (1850-1860), 11th December 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1349, Untitled Article

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      but she ' is driven to supply the wants of her magnificent chain of nations from this country by the prosperity of her own people . We take it that while the Heaven-implanted lust of man for the possession of the soil continues , and the wide territories of America are comparatively unpeopled , " production" will hold its proper place as the the worthiest and most charming of men ' s occupations , not as the refuge for beaten , starvedout mechanics . We are usually loth , after much warning , to express opinions upon the peculiarities of our neighbours ; but if the natural order of men ' s desires in America is to become producers

      when they cannot find occupation as mechanics , we can only say we are surprised . The best support of our position is , that while iron is cheap aud breadstuff ' s almost a luxury in Great Britain , the former is far dearer , and the latter comparatively a drug , in our author ' s country . In his answer to the free trade argument , that other interests would be unjustly taxed by his proposed duty of 17 dols . per ton , Mr . French verges upon simplicity . His scheme to render a 30 per cent , duty acceptable to the-community , and to neutralise its disastrous effects upon progress by demonstrating that the farmers in the neighbourhood of new ironworks will reap more than equivalent benefit from the money distributed there , is certainly not such a one member of the

      as we should liave expected from a New York Statistical Society and of the Philadelphia Academy ; but , assuming it to have been unguardedly propounded , we will conclude our brief notice , as we began it , with the expression of our general satisfaction with the work . Looking at the subject from outside , and very dispassionately , we cannot regard the author ' s anti-free trade arguments as statesmanlike or soundly economical , and hardly imagine them to find much favour . with the American business men . But we have found much to praise , in his lucid and interesting collection of technical aud statistical data , and \ o admire in the picture he presents to us of the present aud future extent and prosperity of the iron industry of his country .

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      THE MAIDEN SISTERS . The Maiden Sisters . By the Author of " Dorothy . " J . W . Parker and Son . This novel will create no violent sensation , but will have popularity , and will well deserve it . Tlie chief charm is in the distinctness of character and the pleasant delineations of domestic life The characters will not startle by their force , but they will satisfy by their general truthfulness . The incidents anil scenes will not excite breathless interest , but they will please by their consistency and charm by their truthfulness . The plot of the tnlo is this . Jfive maiden sisters , tho youngest , JGllen ; a paragon of charms , kept in sehoolgirl-liko subjection , by her rigid sister Anne , occupy Hose ( pottage after the death of their father , Mr . Korr , a retired

      manufac-Ellea is attached to a sailor cousin , several contretemp appear to favour this story , and ColoneJ -Oliph'ani although determining to know his fate , contrijMp t < postpone the explanation until Ellen , becoming suddenly ill in consequence of her secret disquietude is persuaded to go out to the Cape to join hei brother . She is suffered to depart by Colonel Oli ' pliant , who remains under the delusion created by Phil , and she reaches the Cape but to die brokenhearted . Colonel Oli pliant becomes aware of the truth when it is too late ; he rushes off to the Cape to find that hope is over . After a suitable time given to " grief , he marries another lady , and , ' lives happily all the rest of his life . The fault in this novel is that the ladies and gentlemen fall in love too lightly , and transfer their affections too rapidly , this , too , in direct defiance of the line in Tom Moore ' s well known song—The heart that once trulv loves never forgets .

      turor . Tho wife of a brother located at the Capo comes to ICngluud , draws Ellen fro n hor rural retreat into tho world , where sho captivatos a brace of beaux , a Colonel Ollphant , nnich older than borsolf , and Lord John Calton . Tlie most amusing portion of tho work is the adroit and downright fashion in which Norah Kcrr , tho brother ' s wife , overcomes tho strait-laced notions of Anno respecting her sister Ellen , and tho quips nnd cranks of her eon Phil , n boy about" thirteen , and an imp as full of whims and oddities ns Puck himself . The aristocratic family of Lord John Calton favour the attentions of Lord John to Ellen , but after Ellen has all but given him hor affections uho discovers that lie id secretly attached to hla cousin , Mary Mortimer , upon which she breaks with Lord John incontinently and yields hor affections to Colonel Oli plum t . Tho young imp , Phil , here unintentionally becomes a lasting mischiefmakers ho induces Colonel Oliphant to believe that

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      VAEIUAI . Varium . L . Booth . Under this quaint title a novel , with a certain amount of ability , will be found , but notof the highest class . We do not clearly comprehend the author ' s purpose if he have any higher one than that of producing a stated number of personages as actors on a certain number of scenes , the conclusion of which is to bring about a marriage . We have Alan Percy , son of Lord Percy , and Esther Penrose , daughter of Lady Penrose , his cousin—a very suitable couple whom their parents desire to bring together in lawful wedlock , which desire is thwarted up to the last chapter by the young gentleman , a kind of juvenile Werther , who has a growing penchant for his beautiful

      cousin , but has that penchant for a season obliterated by the fascinations of a French March ioness with whom he becomes acquainted at Paris during the heyday of the French Kevolution , at the house of one of the old French female nqblesse where he had been sent for the purpose of completing a somewhat neglected education and polishing a somewhat brusque exterior . He fancies the Marchioness reciprocates his attachment , and this estranges him from Lady Esther , who is pining in secret for the return of her lover , her dreamy cousin . But after the exe-r cution of the Marchioness in the Reign of Terror , lie

      discovers , to the great mortification of his amourpropre , that the said Marchioness had previously played off exactly the same sort of lures on a Lord Corrle , whom he despises for liis inferior bodily and mental qualities , and had entered with him into exactly the same sort of liaison . The film falls from the eyes of the youthful egotist , he turns again to his first love , and the cousins , with the full approbation of both families , which they had froni the outset , commit matrimony . There is a Mr . Gruffey , who plays the part of a kind of Mentor to the young Saxon Telemachus . There are conversations recorded between the pair in the style of the German school of metaphysics ; there are scenes in good society in England and in high society in France , the latter a little overcoloured , but tolerably close to the truth as it has been handed down to us by actors in that eventful period . The best part appears to us the character of Lady Penrose , clever and worldly , who goes to work in admirable style to extort a declaration from Alan to Esther . We have said the novel is clever ; many readers will perhaps be inclined to go a step in praise beyond thin .

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      POETRY . Codrus , King of Athens , a Tragedy ; and Miscellaneous Poems . Jiy Richard Neal . ( Sampson Low and Co . )—A century ago Codrus would have won a certain amount of fumo for the author : in the present exacting age wo fear tho subject will have small interest , and tho respectable blank verse in which it is eu . shrined will hardly redeem that cardinal defect . The Miscellaneous Poema show considerable power of versilication , but a rather too strong predilection for compound word * , not in . all

      cases iu harmony with the genius of tho English language . Wo liavo " word-dallying , " " sun-quaffing , " " storin-bloqkaded , " " postlninie-proist ? , " and similar philological -novelties . I » tho poem "On tho Eve of the Deluge , " we llnd a spocimon of tho conversation' of the ludioa nnd gentlemen of tho Noachiavn period , and if it really was tho languugo of lovers ia that interesting period , all wo can say is , wo give the preference to more modern times .

      David and Samuel , and Other Focms . By John Robortson . ( Sooloy , Jackson , ami Co . )—Tho piety is better than tho poetry ; in tho eyoa of a cortain olaaa of rondora tho ono will atono for tho other ; iu tho oyes of tho critic tlio rovorso , wo fonr , will be the ease . The Adventures of Telemacfms . A I ' notionl Translation . By E . W . Simcojc . Second Edition . ( Longman nnd Co . )— " T « loniaohu » , " like " Robinson Crusoe , " will alwava bo Meiitfflocl with boyhood rucolloctons . Tho pootioal version baa already boon ao woll rel shed by tho public as to necessitate a flocond edition , which is nowj handaomoly bound and nrintod—presented to thorn . Wo

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      often have been a matter of considerable difficulty . It is a point in which Lord Ravens worth has sometimes succeeded to admiration ; while in others he has experienced , in bur opinion , as decided a failure . To find faults is an unpleasant task at any time , and to suggest possible improvements a very easy oue . But we would seek to bear out our view by reference particularly to the fourteenth ode of the second book , where we find a metre employed ( and not for the first or the last time ) which very inadequately represents the weight and fulness of the Latin Alcaic , and to the fourth ode of the first book , where the same metre is used , and with as little

      success in the place of a curiously elaborate aud expressive original . We may adduce , too , the 18 th Ode of the Second Book , -where the ordinary heroic metre is substituted for the lyric , and a translation offered ill consequence , which neither in letter nor spirit gives us any equivalent for the Latin . It would be most unfair , however , to form a judgment from such instances as these , though they occur more frequently than we should wish to find them , especially since the great success of other passages makes us feel every failure the more acutely by comparison with a standard which Lord Havens worth has himself supplied *

      It will be seen that , although most of the book is from Lord Ravensworth ' s own pen , yet lie has interspersed a few translations for which he is indebted to others . He has a strong claim upon our thanks and admiration for having done so : the more so as the manner in . which they are given shows how free he is from the jealous dread of a literary rival . Iu particular we must express our gratitude for having been presented with . Lord i ) erbv ' s contribution to the volume . The noble

      Earl ' s version of the 37 th Ode of the First Book is one of the finest imitatious we have ever read , and though in point of accurate rendering it may suffer by comparison with Lord Ravensworth ' s own , yet its elegance and grandeur of expression are such that we can have no hesitation in-pronouncing it the finest thing in the volume . The metre , too , which is , we believe , a new one , is very happily chosen , and gives as full an equivalent as possible for the characteristics of the original ode . "Whatever may be the success of future translations , it will indeed be a difficult task to rival its surpassing

      THE ODES OF HORACE . The Odes qf Horace . Translated by Lord Ravensworth Upham and Beet . What is the kind of object that should be aimed at in a metrical translation ? This is a question which has lately been much discussed . The free and the literal modes of rendering have each found their advocates , and authors have taken up their position between the two , inclining more nearly to the ono or to the other , according to the degree in which they felt how necessary it was that a translation should represent the original , or h ow impossible it was to " dance in fetters . " In the midst , howeverof all these varieties of opinion one thing

      , has been agreed on by all—^ -that a translation of any real value is difficult and woll-nigh impossible to accomplish . The author of the work before us has undertaken his task with a full knowledge of its difficulty . He does not profess or expect to be able to reproduce the poems of Horace in a modern clothing , or to offur an equivalent in English for " that elaborate nnd unrivalled felicity , " which leaves the imitator little prospect of success . His him is move lowly and more attainable , but we must add that the substnnco of the work hns given us more than tho preface undertakes . " Non fumum ex fulgorc , sed ex fumo dare luccm , " is an Horatian maxim of which tho translator has apparently been not unmindful .

      It hns been frequently disputed whether the oritic who is to judge of tho merit of a translation ought or ought not to be well acquainted with the original author . He would certainly , in the one case , bo a poor judge of the accuracy of the work , or , indeed , how far it was a translation at nil ; in tho other ho might bo tempted to pardon inolcgauoics of expression , and constructions barely grammatical , if such appoaved ncoossary to attain tho desired object—the closest possible adherence to

      tho original form and language Lord Ravcnswortli has , we bcliavo , been fortunato enough to doscrvo the praise of cither . Ho hap taken a happy middle course between looseness and pedantic accuracy , so that while his lyrics may be rend with plonsuro by tho student who is acquainted with tho Latin text , they may bo road , too , for their own sukcs in English , quite independently of tho fuot of their being intended as a translation at all . The choice of a fitting and analogous metro must

      excellence . We are sorry to observe that in the Dedication Lord ilavensworth has thought fit to imitate the manner of Horace ' s own addresses to the " high and mighty" in a point about which Pope * somewhat ostentatiously , has proclaimed his own innocence . To celebrate virtues in the great which were unknown to all but their discoverer was pardonable perhaps in an author who was dependent upon the favour of the court of Augustus , but the same excuse can scarcely hold , good for an English nobleman . However , littera scripta manet—it is too late how to recal the objectionable passages .

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      JSTo . 455 , December 11 , 1858 . ] THE LEADER \ 1349 _

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 11, 1858, page 1349, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2272/page/13/