celebrity abroad more easily and rapidly by writing his poems in German as well as Danish-in his stepmother as well as his mother tongue, and this has sent his name early over distant regions, where his Danish poems would have long remained utterly unknown. As a dramatic poet, he has been very fortunate in his English translator, Mr. Gillies, a nephew of the historian of Greece. This gentleman's "Hora Danica," published in Blackwood's Magazine some years ago, contains analyses of Oehlenschläger's best plays, together with free and spirited translations of the most striking passages. Oehlenschläger's beautiful

drama of "Correggio," from which copious extracts are taken by Mr. Longfellow, has had, by its masterly and exquisite treatment of the artist's life and character, an extraordinary influence in giving rise to the numerous novels and dramas, which, under the name of artist-novels and artist-dramas, have overrun the literature of Germany.

The Swedish ballads, which Mr. Longfellow has collected from the Foreign Quarterly and the North American Reviews, are well rendered, but have not, in point of style, the antique flavor of the versions from the Danish by Jamieson, which in other respects they strongly resemble. Bishop Tegnér's is, however, the overshadowing celebrity of Swedish poetry. His genius is immortalized by one of the raciest and most original productions in modern times, Frithiofs Saga, of which Mr. Longfellow has given a copious analysis, in English prose that almost equals in beauty and picturesqueness of expression the extraordinary splendor of the Swedish original. This poem has excited great enthusiasm in Europe; it has been extremely well translated in German by Mohnike, and twice exceedingly ill translated in English. Mr. Longfellow has inserted several extracts from the version by Strong, which is a libel upon the great Swede, and two short passages translated by himself in a manner that makes us long to see the whole poem incorporated into our literature by his skilful pen. Among the Bishop's most remarkable pieces unquestionably stands the "Children of the Lord's Supper," written in the classical hexameter, with which the author's studies as Greek Professor in the University of Lund made him familiar. It is a remarkable fact, which we have verified by our own examination, that Mr. Longfellow has re-produced the Swedish

poem in English hexameters, line for line, not omitting a single epithet, scarcely modifying a single pause or word, and not losing a single shade of the author's meaning.

The great importance of German literature has drawn to its study, in England and the United States, a large portion of the talent which has been occupied with foreign subjects. Nearly two hundred pages of this volume are devoted to German poetry, which is divided into seven periods extending from the eighth century to the present day. Of the early German poetry, three remarkable works, the Heldenbuch and Nibelungen-lied are illustrated by copious analyses and admirable translations, taken from the "Ancient Teutonic Poetry and Romance" in the "Northern Antiquities," by Weber. The little interest which these well executed versions have excited in England, is one of the unaccountable literary phenomena of the times. The only names of any consequence that glimmer over the long tract of the third period, are Ulrich Boner, Veit Weber, known as the author of five battle songs preserved in Diebold Schilling's Chronicle, Martin Luther, and Abraham a Sancta Clara, the author of an odd piece of doggerel, entitled "Saint Antony's Sermon to the Fishes." But in the next period we encounter the brilliant forerunners of the great age of GermanyBodmer, Haller, Klopstock, Lessing, Gessner, Jacobi, and others; whose critical and poetical labors prepared the way for Weiland, Herder, Bürger, Goethe, Voss and Schiller, that unequalled constellation of poets and scholars, which has made Germany the luminous region in the literature of our age, which has made the era of Weimar seem a revival of those mighty ages in the past, the ages of Pericles, of Augustus, of Leo the Tenth, of Queen Elizabeth, and of Louis the Fourteenth. The scholars of our country have taken the lead in the department of German translation. Longfellow, Dwight, Brooks, Calvert, Eliot, Frothingham, Cranch, and others, have shown more skill and fidelity in the work than any English scholars with whose labors in this way we are acquainted. Compare for instance, Carlyle's degrading paraphrase of Göethe's inimitable lyric, "Singet nicht in Trauertöne," which Mr. Longfellow has wisely excluded from his collection, with any piece translated by either of these American scholars.

Passing over the Dutch, who boast of poetical names which

would do honor to the literature, if not to the euphony of any language; and the French, who are well represented by a series of extracts divided into six periods; we come to the beautiful and finished poetical literature of Italy, which is divided into four periods, and fills a hundred and twenty pages. But even here, we have only time to dwell for a moment on a single point—the genius of Dante, the great light of Italy, and the admiration of the world.

That unique production, the Divina Commedia, of which Mr. Longfellow has given an excellent analysis, has been the cross, not only of grammarians, but of translators. The condensation of Dante's language, the austere simplicity of his figures, his antique and solemn turn of phrase, that terse and nervous style which his genius formed out of the rude, chaotic materials of the vulgar tongue, and which fittingly expressed the intense gloom and grandeur and the restless energies of the most fiery spirit that was ever imprisoned in human form, present disheartening difficulties to the translator; and the difficulties are still farther increased by the terza rima, which bands all the parts together by its interlaced and continuous harmonies, and concentrates the forces of Dante's awful lines. Cary has translated Dante into blank verse, modelled on the rhythmical principles of the Paradise Lost, which fails to reproduce the stern simplicity of the original. Mr. Wright has lately completed a translation which approaches nearer to the metrical form of the Italian; but his rhythmical series, instead of interlocking all the tercets of a canto into an unbroken whole, completes itself with every six lines. Dr. Parsons has tried his hand upon the mighty Florentine, and rendered the first ten cantos of the Inferno into English quartrains, with great ability, but with an effect quite different from the measure of Dante. Byron has reproduced the episode of Francesca da Rimini with considerable success, in the original measure. Merivale, in whose recent death the cause of letters deplores the loss of a most accomplished scholar, has executed translations of fourteen passages, each of considerable length, preserving the triple rhyme, for the most part, with fine effect. A translation of Dante, however, representing every side of his wonderful genius, is still a desideratum in English literature. Besides specimens from the minor poems of Dante, Mr. Longfellow has given us

Byron's Francesca, Farinata by Dr. Parsons, three passages from the Purgatory by himself, in which he has followed, in ten-syllable blank verse, every word of the original with curious exactness, and Beatrice by Mr. Francis C. Gray, who preserves with singular felicity the effect of the terza rima.

We have no space for comments upon Petrarch or any of the long line of his illustrious successors in Italian poetry, many of whom are fully represented in Mr. Longfellow's volume.

The remaining hundred and forty-six pages are devoted to the romantic and varied poetry of Spain, and the elegant literature of Portugal; but the numerous interesting topics which are suggested by the great names of Lope de Vega, Calderon, Cervantes and Camoens, we are compelled reluctantly to forego.

C. C. F.

ART. VIII.—THE MORAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST.

THE perfection of Christ's moral character is a fact. Almost all unbelievers admit the fact, and all believers rejoice in it and derive ever new supplies of moral strength from the contemplation of the deep and holy beauty which shines forth in the person and life of their Lord and. Master. It is delightful to know that this sacred ground is common to all. Here there is a resting-place for the mind amid the jarrings of actual life. From this source emanate the purest and noblest influences which touch the human heart and mould human society.

A fact so generally admitted should not only be admitted; a character so generally admired should not only be admired they should be understood and explained. It would be a desecration of this subject to approach it in the spirit of controversy; but in the spirit of free inquiry and of sincere discipleship it may be permitted us to doubt whether men, either as philosophers or as Christians, have sufficiently accounted to themselves for the fact of this extraordinary perfection of character. Here is an unparalleled phenomenon, a solitary instance of the attainment of a degree of

moral excellence, as far as appears from the records of the race, previously inconceivable or at least not conceived, and unapproachable or at least hitherto unapproached by any other human being, placing at an immeasurable distance the highest virtues of the most distinguished sages and philanthropists that have lived in the world. How did this. phenomenon arise? By what means was it produced? We must not be contented with taking it simply by itself, but must examine it in connection with other phenomena which preceded, or accompanied, or followed it, and which will serve to explain the relations in which it stands. We must not be contented with looking at the character of Christ, as if he had suddenly dropped down from heaven or sprung up out of the earth, a full grown and perfect specimen of human nature. As inquirers after truth, we are bound to ask,· how did Christ become what he was? Under what influences was that transcendent moral greatness that he attained, formed in him and brought to perfection?

Is the moral character of Christ a mystery beyond our research and comprehension? It was not so regarded by the first promulgators of Christianity, who, sometimes in the most familiar terms, and at other times with a glowing richness of language, expressly assign the cause of his preeminence. In subsequent ages, however mysterious the original dignity of his person and the constitution of his nature may have been and may still be deemed, no sect or subdivision of the Christian Church appears ever to have considered his moral character as invested with the same obscurity or difficulty. Whatever other nature, Divine or angelic, he may or may not have possessed, superadded to the human, it is certain that he lived and labored, suffered and died, a man amongst men, the man Christ Jesus amongst those whom he was not ashamed to call brethren. His moral character as our great Examplar was formed and exhibited on earth. It is placed within our reach, and is capable of being apprehended by his followers not merely in its outward form, but in its inward principle. He has left us an example, that we should follow his steps; but his example does not consist solely in acts performed by him, and to be imitated by us, without any reference to motive. Principle and motive give to external actions their