"sea-change Into something rich and strange;" of which we have now heard enough. It may be observed in this place, that the far greater difficulty of translation from a foreign tongue into a vernacular one, may be appreciated by the comparative hopelessness of attempting to translate out of our own into our own, such passages as the foregoing, how accurately soever the sense may be given in terms similar, but not the same as those wherein the poet had bound it, as with the girdle of Florimel, which none but she for whom it was made could wear, and which, among crowds of false claimants, identified the true owner by fitting her alone. It is remarkable, also, that the simplest thoughts, in the simplest words those which translate themselves at first sight are the least capable of being transfused with effect into any other words than those in which the original authors arrayed them; perhaps for this reason, that the sentiments themselves would never have been expressed at all but for the felicity of phrase, which the idioms of the poet's own language, without searching, supplied; these, indeed, may be elegantly paraphrased, but seldom literally rendered without irreparable deficiency of force. It will not be questioned that the feelings so exquisitely uttered in the following lines of Catullus, might not, with equal fervency and tenderness, be breathed forth in British verse, by a traveller long detained, and late arriving at his happy home. But an air and cast as entirely different must be given to the whole, as the atmosphere and aspect of things around the lares of a Roman villa must have differed from the warm comforts of an Englishman's fireside. "O quid solutis est beatius curis, Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino How much even these sweet lines have been excelled, on a similar theme, in the language of our own land, every one must feel, who can compare the pure egotism of Catullus with the nobler sympathies of Coleridge: "And now, beloved Stowey! I behold Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms, Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend; And close behind them, hidden from my view, Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe, And my babe's mother dwell in peace ! with light Variety of Style. Diction in poetry, though employed expressly for the purpose of setting off the writer's thoughts in the most advantageous light, according to their character and the nature of the subject-but so as always to please, directly or indirectly, instantaneously or on reflection - diction, we observe, is capable of every variety of style, from the simplest to the most adorned; from the most sprightly and conversational to the most sublime and severe. It is the practice of vulgar nay, versifiers, and also of many well-bred ones even of learned clerks, for academical poetry is peculiarly obnoxious to this censure - to labour their diction into stiff and stately, or vapid and affected unintelligibility, by means of inverted syntax, erudite terms, and all the pedantry of circumlocution; presuming, that it must of course approach so much the nearer to verse as it is further removed from prose. The very contrary is the fact; the best verse most nearly resembles the best prose in the plainness of the words employed, the natural construction of the sentences, and the easy intelligence of the whole, where nothing is wanting, nothing superfluous, nothing out of place, out of season, or out of proportion; in short, where nothing is singular for the sake of singularity, or out of the ordinary course, except for extraordinary purposes. Hobbes of Malmsbury, in the preface to his Version of Homer, has a beautiful thought and comparison on this subject: "The order of words, when placed as they ought to be, carries a light before it, whereby a man. may foresee the length of his period; as a torch in the night showeth a man the stops and unevenness of his way." The theories of Mr. Wordsworth and the late Dr. Darwin deserve consideration here. Mr. Wordsworth's Theory of Poetic Diction. Among living authors, not one has shown greater command of diction than Mr. Wordsworth; suiting his style to his subjects with consummate address, though sometimes with unhappy effect, from the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of making general readers partakers, by direct sympathy, with his peculiar experiences and imaginings, that is, see with his eyes, hear with his ears, feel with his heart, and think with his mind, possess them wholly with his own spirit, or for the time being absorb each of them into himself. - In an age of poetical innovations, Mr. Wordsworth has undoubtedly been one of the boldest and most successful adventurers. In the preface to his "Lyrical Ballads," casting away at once, and entirely, all the splendid artifices of style, invented in the earliest ages of the fathers of poetry, and perpetuated among all classes of their successors, he avowed that his principal object was, to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate and describe them throughout, as far as possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and at the same time to throw upon them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting, by tracing in them truly, though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature, chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement." Now, however the poet's ingenuity in the advancement and vindication of his theory of phraseology may deserve commendation, and however just the theory may be, so far as his system would restrict the multitude of epithets and expletives which often we may render verse too heavy for endurance, reasonably protest against the unqualified rejection of those graces of diction (suitable to the elevation of enthusiastic thoughts equally above ordinary discourse and ordinary capacities), which essentially distinguish poetry from prose, and have been sanctioned by the successful usage of bards in every age and nation, civilised or barbarous, on which the light of song hath risen with its quickening, ennobling, and ameliorating influences. In dramatic works, assuredly, the writer, through all his characters, should speak the truth of living nature; the language of the strong passions should be stern, abrupt, sententious, and sublime; that of the gentler affections, ardent, flowing, figurative, and beautifully redundant; while, in both instances, every colour of expression, every form of thought which appeals to the imagination only, and touches not the heart, nor adds to the positive interest of the piece, should be rigorously proscribed. But in narrative, descriptive, and ethic poetry, I know no law of nature, and I will acknowledge none of art, that forbids Genius to speak his mother tongue, - a language (a dialect rather, of every distinct language) which, in sound and structure, as well as in character and sentiment, exalts itself far above any models of common speech; and yet, in simplicity, freedom, and intelligibility, according to the subject, equals the poorest and least ornamented prose. Mr. Wordsworth allows a poet to be a person "of more than usual organic sensibility;" and declares, that “he must have thought long, to produce |