to the wives whom he dearly loved and dignifiedly mourned-mourned in heart and not in words merely, honouring their memories by his manly sorrow, the book would even then be worthy of the sympathy of all who feel that poetry is not necessarily fiction any more than a promise on a tomb-stone is necessarily truth. The lines headed "Alone," will illustrate what we mean. We conclude with the following, as something new connected with Wordsworth.

"The summers of 1843 and 1844 were passed by Mr. and Mrs. Quilinan at the Island,' in Windermere, belonging to Mr. Curwen, of Workington Hall, with whose family the Wordsworths were connected by the marriage of the poet's eldest son with Miss Curwen. Mr. Curwen frequently lent his residence to his friends, which led Mr. Wordsworth to perpetrate a pun upon the place (the only levity of the kind perhaps that he ever fell into), and to propose that it should be called the Borrow-me-an Island."

Single-speech Hamilton made an excellent speech, on which his reputation as

an

orator proverbially rests. Wordsworth's reputation as a punster rests upon a similar foundation. We only wish he had committed more of such pleasant peccadilloes. He would have written none the worse poetry for it.

The Etymological Compendium, or Portfolio of Origins and Inventions. By William Pulleyn, 3rd edition, revised and improved by Merton A. Thoms. sm. 8vo. 1853. The editor of this work is a new candidate for literary honours, and, as we learn from the preface, a son of Mr. Thoms the editor of Notes and Queries. His additions to this book indicate him to be his father's own son. He deals in folk lore, chronicles old customs and popular sayings, and has evidently an eye to all things curious and note-worthy. The book tells everything. It is not over particular as to accuracy, a good story seems to have gone as far with Mr. Pulleyn as a sturdy fact, but then he makes up largely by variety and comprehension. He embraces facts and fictions of all kinds, from the origin of language, government, writing, music, and all the other fundamentals of society and civilization, to such questions as how we came by candles, gas-lights, and lanthorns; when we began to pay rent to landlords and fees to lawyers; what is the meaning of the black doll hung up at rag shops; and the appellations Whigs and Tories in our party disputes; who invented telescopes, playing cards, quoits, foot ball, twelfth cake, calico printing, and the stamp duty on receipts; who were

the Mamelukes, the Brownies, Pope Joan, and John Doe and Richard Roe; what is a banyan day, a whiffler, a spinning jenny, a lac of rupees, the curse of Scotland, a man of straw, a haggis, a fandango, vegetable ivory, and a goe of gin; where may be found various celebrated places between the Regent's Park and the Red Sea ; why a person who is out of sorts is no great shakes; and why we eat goose at Michaelmas; who are the bulls and the bears of the Stock Exchange; what is a death-watch, a sham Abram, a skinflint, a radical, a horoscope, a dennet,and a dun: with ten thousand other things for inquiry and investigation. The volume is, in truth, a Notes and Queries in little, with all the faults and excellencies of the original. A concentrated essence of odd curious little items of knowledge, caught flying and fixed in type for the use of every body. In one respect, however, it is not like its weekly prototype. It does not contain a word about photography. The next edition will probably remedy this omission.

The design of the book is evidently an excellent one. There is something in it to interest every body. It will therefore no doubt command a large and ready sale, and give the editor many opportunities of correction and enlargement. We will give one extract as a specimen :

THE TROUBADOURS.

"When the cloth was ta'en away,
Minstrels straight began to play,
And while harps and viols join,
Raptured bards, in strains divine,
Loud the trembling arches rung
With the noble deeds we sung."

In the eleventh century, the troubadours made their appearance in Provence. They were the founders of modern versification; frequently singing their own songs to the melody of their own harps; and when they were not able to do the latter, minstrels accompanied them, who recited the lays the troubadour composed. Though in every country wherever there is a language, there is poetry, and wherever there is poetry, there is music; and in our own in particular, singing to the harp appears to have been early and successfully cultivated, yet the melodies were purely traditional; and the most ancient melodies extant, that have been set to a modern language, are those which are preserved in the Vatican Library, to the songs of the troubadours, written in the ancient dialect of Provence. In the 12th, 13th, and part of the 14th centuries, the minstrels, bards, or jongleurs, the descendants of the troubadours, occupied a conspicuous station in society. In our own country there were king's minstrels and queen's minstrels,

Yet, in some of the satires of the times, we find them abused under the names of chantier, fableeir, jangleeirs, and menestre; whilst their art is called janglerie, and they are said to be Anti-Christ, perverting the age by their merry jangles. Piers Ploughman, an ancient satirist also accuses the minstrels of debauching the minds of the people, and of being tutors of idleness and the devil's discourse; and that they did imbibe some of the general licentiousness which, at the era of the Conquest, and for some time before, and some time after, overspread all England, is not unlikely. But for several reigns they were favoured by the noble and the fair, and protected by royal authority. In their baronial mansions, on all occasions of high and solemn feasts, the observances of chivalry and the charms of music were united.

In the reign of Henry III. we find one Henry de Auranches, a Frenchman, dignified with the title of Master Henry, the versifier; which appellation, Mr. Warton observes, perhaps implies a character different from the royal minstrel, or joculator. In 1249, and in 1251, we find orders on the treasurer to pay this Master Henry one hundred shillings, probably a year's stipend; and in the same reign, forty shillings and a pipe of wine were given to Richard, the king's harper, and a pipe of wine to Beatrice his wife. In time, a gross degeneracy appears to have characterised the once-famed order of minstrels; the sounder part of society pursued them with prohibitions and invectives, till they were at last driven from the more respectable walks of life to the lower orders. Their irregularities became the more rude and offensive, till their order expired amid the general contempt of an improving nation.-Turner's History of England, vol. i. p. 432.

The history of the troubadours and the Provençal poets has formed the subjects of many valuable publications of late years. In France, M. Raynouard has published not only a selection of their best writings under the title of Choix des Poesies des Troubadours, but also a Glossary of the language in which they are written. M. Fauriel has also published in three vols. 8vo., Histoire de la Posie Provençale. While in Germany, an accomplished M. Dier has given to the world both an Essay on their Poetry, and a volume on the lives and writings of the most distinguished troubadours. Of the German trouba

dours, or Minnesingers, the late Mr. Edgar Taylor published an interesting account in his Lays of the Minnesingers; and in 1838, Professor von der Hagen of Berlin

under the title of Deutsche Liederdichter des 12, 13, and 14 Jahrhunderts. p. 44.

The Odes of Horace, translated into Unrhymed Metres. By F. W. Newman. 8vo.-It is an old observation that Horace is among the most untranslateable of poets. Of his Satires and Epistles, argumentative and familiar, full of sound common sense, and teeming with real life and observations of society, some idea can be given by modern imitations. But the charm of his lyrical poetry is essentially dependent on the "studied felicity" of language, and that graceful perfection of expression, which vanishes like the fresh bloom of a flower in the attempt to remove it from the soil in which it has been reared.

In

Where the matter is so slight and the form so important, where there is so perfect a symmetry and so little solidity of thought or depth of feeling, the materials may be reconstructed in a new language, but the charm of the original is lost. many respects this unfitness for translation is common to the works of all the Latin poets. The Romans of the later and more polished period seem to have never known poetry except as a learned art. The Muses, whose inspiration they affected to court, were deities who had no native worship upon Roman ground. Even Ennius, summus noster poeta, whom Cicero and his contemporaries honoured as we honour Chaucer, gained his supremacy by the introduction of Greek forms of verse. Terence was a dimidiatus Menander; Virgil boasted that he was the first imitator of Theocritus; and Horace claimed as his highest honour,

Princeps Eolium carmen ad Italos
Deduxisse modos,

the same field. The chaplets of song were
although Catullus had been before him in
awarded only to learned brows, and the
the profane crowd.
vocation of the poet removed him from

Me doctarum hæderæ proemia frontium
Dis miscent superis.

Hence this portion of Roman literature suffered under that emasculating influence which affects every species of art that stands aloof from the sympathies and imaginations of the mass of mankind. Graceful and refined, it lacks the energy, the passion, the originality, and the simplicity which distinguish national and popular poetry. A great deal of the force and beauty of our greatest lyric poet, Burns, is due to his complete exemption from the influence of all mere artificial refinement. His songs, whether playful or pathetic, are based upon motives which

can never become obsolete, and appeal to sympathies as wide-spread as the human

race.

Horace, whom Quintilian estimates as the only Roman lyric poet worth reading, is peculiarly wanting in that hearty earnestness, whether in jest or in pathos, which belongs to a singer of the people. The beauty of many of his odesmust have been inappreciable by his less learned countrymen. Not a few ofthem are direct imitae tions of Greek originals now unknown. What hope of conveying to an English reader a charm which is founded upon a felicity of expression confessedly inimitable, upon the evanescent associations of an older literature, which is lost even to the learned, and a metrical perfection of which our language is incapable?

Most of the translators of Horace have endeavoured to reconstruct his poetry in a modern form. Horace, however, in his English dress is, if possible, more unlike the Roman poet than Pope's Homer is to the old rhapsodist. A pretty imitation is possible here and there, but the greater part of Horace's odes are incapable of forming the basis of a modern poem. The only Ode in English which can give unmixed pleasure to the scholar is that which Milton translated

What slender youth bedewed with liquid odours

Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,

Pyrrha for whom bind'st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair?

With that exquisite sense of the beautiful in ancient art and poetry with which Milton was gifted, he felt that to change the form was in this case to destroy the thought, and that those who would read Horace in their own tongue must still be content to read not an English but a Latin author.

In the translation of the Odes of Horace which Mr. Newman has given us, this necessity is recognised; and the author professes to write, not for those who seek for amusement, but for thoughtful and serious though unlearned readers. His work is executed in unrhymed metres, upon a plan which he thus explains: "I have adopted the principle that each Latin metre should have one and one only English representative. The English stanza, for instance, which replaces the Horatian Sapphic in one ode, replaces it in all, and is never used for any other metre than the Sapphic. The ability to fulfil this condition seemed to me an important test of my stanza being really suitable. Moreover, if several English substitutes were allowed, the translator would be tempted to use his freedom beyond what

was necessary, and the effect to the reader would be impaired, nearly as though a translator of Homer were to render different books into a different metre. Altogether, I am convinced, that to work under the pressure of immoveable conditions, if they be not unreasonable ones, produces in the long run the chastest result."

Before considering how far Mr. New. man has succeeded in his translations, we may mention, in order to complete the description of his work, that he has arranged the odes in a chronological order, at any rate not improbable, and illustrated his translations with concise and able notes both on the history and the poetry. The latter are intended to be sufficient, and we think are sufficient, to give an intelligent reader, with no previous knowledge of ancient languages or literature, such an insight into Horatian persons and circumstances as will enable him without other assistance to understand his author.

In order to find a representative for every variety of metre used by Horace, the translator is compelled by his system to invent many forms of stanza altogether new in English poetry. This is a bold measure, inasmuch as it demands from the reader a more patient perusal, and a longer dwelling upon each ode, in order to school the ear to its unaccustomed rhythm, than most readers will, we fear, be willing to afford. Metres formed immediately upon those used in the Latin, by substituting an accented for a long and an unaccented for a short syllable, after the fashion which has been so much pursued in German translations, are rejected by Mr. Newman as founded on a false or incomplete analogy. "They are generally found, he thinks, to bear a different character from those which they imitate, to be light, perhaps, tripping or humorous, where the original is grave and stately.' It might be added that most of the Horatian metres are so difficult to be caught by a modern ear, that an English imitation of them would be probably misunderstood. This is shewn by the mode in which the Sapphic metre is ordinarily read, and by the attempts which have been made to introduce it into English. The Anti-jacobin imitation for example,

Weary knife-grinder, whither art thou going? differs altogether, both in character and in actual measurement by accentual long and short syllables, from the ancient Sapphic.

The metre chosen by Mr. Newman to represent the Sapphic appears to be founded on a portion of the stanza employed by Burns indifferently as a vehicle of sarcasm, pathos, and gaiety, in Holy Willie's Prayer, in the Verses on Captain Grose,

novel metre to remind us that we are reading a Latin and not an English poet, and in so doing answer an understood purpose. But, however Mr. Newman's work may fall short of perfection, many Englishmen will be enabled by it to gain an idea of the Roman lyrist which no previous transla. tion could possibly have given. We offer our thanks to the author for an experiment, which, if it be not altogether successful, is founded on a right principle, and is guided in a right direction.

The Politics and Economics of Aristotle. Translated, with Notes and Analyses. By E. Walford, M.A. Post 8vo. pp. lxxx., 338. (Bohn's Classical Library.) This is a volume of the Composite order. The translation of the Politics is based on that of Ellis, which though not elegant was pronounced by the Monthly Review to be faithful and perspicuous. In the revision, the translation by Taylor, and "the polished paraphrase of Gillies," have been consulted. Dr. Gillies would, indeed, have been gratified at finding the judgment of the Critical Review, that "he might in various parts have polished the style to a higher degree of elegance," reversed; and still more astonished at being joined with his old antagonist, Platonist Taylor, his contempt for whom he did not dissemble. The text of Bekker (Berlin, 1831,) has been chiefly followed. Gillies' Life of Aristotle and General Introduction are retained. On the translation of the Economics the preface says nothing, but we learn incidentally that the second book, and the latter part of the first, are furnished by the editor. He fairly warns his readers of the suspiciousness of the second book, which Goettling (we may add) has printed as a separate treatise, "incerti cujusdam auctoris." (Ed. Jena, 1830.) In this he follows Niebuhr, who considers it a later work, written under Alexander's successors, for the use of functionaries in Asia Minor in raising money by tricks and extortions, with which opinion Dr. Arnold agrees. (See Hist. of Rome, i. 455.)

The reader must adjust the balance for himself between the eulogies of Dr. Arnold, prefixed to this volume, and the rejection of Aristotle as a guide, by Bacon, as related in Lord Campbell's Life of our great philosopher. But in addition to those praises of Arnold, which relate to the Political Treatise, we may quote the words of Lieber," The gigantic mind of Aristotle had a glimmering of the truth far in advance of his times." (Political Ethics, e. xiii. p. 389, note.) And those of Macculloch, who in his Literature of

Political Economy calls it "the most valuable work on that branch of philosophy that has descended from antiquity." (p. 356.) As it contains many historical allusions, the reader should be warned that the degree of deference due to them is disputed. Niebuhr, indeed, says that "whatever is related on the authority of Aristotle must be believed, just as when Thucydides relates a thing as historical, provided it can be explained in any way." (Lect. on Anc. Hist. i. 360.) This is saying a great deal for any writer, and Mr. Keightley (no incompetent judge) owns that a suspicion that "on points of history Aristotle is not always the very best authority," has more than once crossed his mind. (Hist. of Greece, 5th ed. p. 288.) The note from Müller's Dorians, at p. 64, contradicting his censure of the Spartan women, must be thrown into the less favourable scale. This treatise also lies under the disadvantage of being incomplete. Mr. Blakesley, in his erudite Life of Aristotle, classes it among the note-books, which the author kept for future publication, but never finished; whence arise its imperfections, contradictions, and obscurities. (pp. 140, 160.) On this account the student will find Duval's Analytical Synopsis, or Heinsius' Paraphrase, a desirable accompaniment.

The editor has not distinguished his own notes from those of his predecessors, so that we can only positively ascribe to himself those which refer to recent writers; for instance, Thirlwall, who is often quoted. Having occasion at p. 77 to repeat the passage on Delphic swords, in a note (see p. 5), he not only makes a wrong reference, but quotes a different translation, thus ignoring his own. Names are irregularly and even variously spelled, and the index is defective. On the whole, however, this volume is not deficient in the requisites of translations, and for students who are preparing for examination (and who care little whether authorship be individual or composite) it will perform the usual good services. But English readers (an increasing class) will find the diffuser paraphrase of Gillies more convenient, though some of his remarks have been confuted by time. For those who wish for a translation, without the dishonours of a crib, the French version of Thurot (Didot, Paris, 1824) will answer

* He differs entirely, however, from Aristotle on the interest of loans (p. 249.)

At p. 204, the distinguished Hellenist Coray is called Coraes, as would be the case in Greek or Latin. The author of the Politics might as well be called Aristoteles in the title-page.