1845.] German Transcendentalism. 223 portion of the followers of this eminent theologian, and also to those who constitute what is called the right side of the Hegelian school, he looks mainly for the learning and skill by which Protestantism is to be saved not only from Romanism, but from itself. It is because he thinks that these men possess and combine, in a preeminent degree, evangelical sentiments, a free scientific development, and a proper regard for tradition; which last he holds to be nothing else than that unbroken stream of Christian life and conscientiousness, which has rolled itself along in the Church from the beginning, and from which individual believers cannot cut themselves free, if they would, and ought not to do so, if they could. Taking this ground, the reader will not be surprised to find him sometimes at sharp issue with his Orthodox brethren in this country; as, for example, on the subject of German Transcendentalism. "Speak as men may against German transcendentalism, as the word passes here in a wholesale way, this at least no one acquainted with the subject can deny; that at the very time when the most celebrated theologians cast away the cardinal evangelical doctrines of the incarnation and atonement, as antiquated superstitions, Schelling and Hegel stood forth in their defence, and claimed for them the character of the highest reason; and that while the reigning view saw in history only an aggregate of arbitrary opinions, a chaos of selfish passions, they taught the world to recognize in it the ever opening sense of eternal thoughts, an always advancing rational development of the idea of humanity and its relations to God. Such a view must gradually overthrow the abrupt revolutionary and negative spirit which characterized the last century, restoring respect for the Church and its history, and making room for the genuine power of the positive. It is true indeed, that one section of the Hegelian school, (the so called left side,) has produced the latest and most dangerous form of Rationalism, in which the doctrine of myths and pantheistic hero-worship are made to play so large a part. But this tendency is diametrically opposed to the historical, objective element, that clearly rules the spirit if not always the letter of the great philosopher's writings, and cannot be regarded therefore at all events as a complete application of his system to theology. And then again it must be considered that the movement in question is rendered so dangerous, just because it has received into itself, pantheistically caricatured to be sure, so many truths of Christianity, for which the old Rationalism had no organ whatever, and because it is conducted also with so much more spirit and depth; which itself again is to be referred to a general advance, that may be easily remarked also in the form of the later theology as more scientific than before." - pp. 149–152. In a note to this passage he grows warmer still, condemning, in no measured terms, an article by Professor Stowe, on "Teutonic Metaphysics or Modern Transcendentalism," which appeared in the Biblical Repository for January last. Thus he begins: "I am truly sorry to find myself disappointed in Dr. Stowe. In view only of his relations to my honored instructor and friend Dr. Dorner, now counsellor of consistory and professor of the ology at Koenigsberg, I held him capable of understanding and appreciating the German philosophy and theology, much beyond what he has shown in this unfortunate article. It is not in my mind at all to undertake a wholesale defence of any system of German philosophy as such; for I prize too much the liberty of thought to be bound by any philosophical school, and yield my reason to be led only by the bible. But men like Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, who have devoted their whole life to the most laborious and profound inquiries, and who beyond all question belong to the greatest names in the history of the world, should be treated in different style by such a man as Stowe, in justice only to his own character. Instead of saying a word to us on the contents of the later positive system of Schelling, he informs us of his controversy with Dr. Paulus of Heidelberg, which has nothing in the world to do with the matter in hand; and even takes the part of this wretched rationalist, who closed his career as a writer with a literary theft, against the great philosopher not dreaming at all, as it would seem, that it is precisely the acknowledged merit of this last, to have overcome the standpoint of the abstract understanding, from which the old common Rationalism made war upon all the deeper truths of Christianity. For this common sense, entitled as it is to all respect in its own sphere, the region of the simply finite, will always hold the doctrines of the trinity and incarnation for nonsense; since according to its shallow, empty way of reasoning, three cannot be one nor one three, God cannot be man nor man God. If then no higher principle be allowed to prevail in theology, it must be shorn of all its deeper import. Such a higher principle is the reason, by which we apprehend the supersensuous, the infinite, the divine. But it is Schelling precisely who has successfully asserted the supremacy of this principle in science. To be convinced of this, let Dr. Stowe read Schelling's Lectures on the Method of Academic Study, particularly the fifth and sixth. He will find there a most masterly and powerful argument 1845.] Poets and Poetry of Europe. 225 against the presumption of the mere understanding, in thrusting itself with its poor surface-skimming nature into the region of the higher sciences, which have to do with everlasting ideas making all flat by trying to make all clear." - pp. 150, 151. After this, we hope our Orthodox friends will remember who are rightfully to be suspected, on doctrinal grounds, of inclining to Transcendentalism. J. W. ART. VII.-POETS AND POETRY OF EUROPE.* THE literature of translations has not received the attention which its importance deserves, either in France or in England. No nation is of itself sufficient for its own full intellectual development. Foreign modes of thought, the philosophy, history and poetical creations of those who live in other climes or lived in other ages, are indispensable means of counteracting that intense national bigotry, which, sometimes under the name of patriotism, sometimes under that of national pride, has been fostered and flattered by demagogues as something praiseworthy, until a general narrowness of mind and a stupid insensibility to excellence except within the limits and conditions of conventional taste have grown into characteristics of a whole people. Out of the entire number of readers, even among the educated classes, in any country, only a few are able to enjoy the works of foreign authors in the original languages. The din and pressure of daily life allow but little leisure, and perhaps less inclination for unravelling the intricacies of foreign idioms or solving the difficulties of grammatical constructions, or for studying those national peculiarities which control the forms of speech and give a peculiar coloring to the creations of literature. The great means, then, of enlarging the intellectual sympathies of the public, and of freeing national taste from the bigotries of narrow literary creeds, is obviously translation. And it becomes a question of great interest and import *The Poets and Poetry of Europe. By HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. Philadelphia: Cary & Hart. 8vo. pp. 779. ance, what are the principles of translation; for the work may be executed in different ways, with different ends, and so as to produce different effects. The old English rule required the translator to produce the given work in English, such as the author would have written it had he been an Englishman. There are several objections to the principle of this rule, the first and most material of which is the impossibility of carrying it into execution in any case whatever. The translator can only conjecture what his author's work would have been, had he written it in English; two translators will have different conjectures, and will reproduce the work under quite different forms. In short, they will produce two different works, agreeing, it is true, in the mere outline, and perhaps in the leading features, but differing in every other respect, according to the differing tastes, temperament, critical views and degrees of knowledge which belong to their several authors. In other words, the two so called translations will turn out to be nothing more nor less than two independent English works on a subject which happens to have been treated by a foreign author. Until a comparatively recent period, this has been the rule followed by English writers in attempting to transfer the literature of other countries into their own language. The consequence has been mischievous both to the literature and the modes of thinking of Englishmen. It has confirmed them in the insular prejudices of taste and philosophy which grew too luxuriantly from the native soil of the British mind; and it has restrained the flexibility of the language, and its adaptability to the expression of various and contrasted forms of thought, to which the materials in its composition, brought from a thousand different and distant sources, might have been readily moulded. Works of the kind above described ought not to be called translations. They are paraphrases, or adaptations, and it is a misnomer to call them by any other name. "How did you like my Homer?" said Pope to the surly master of Trinity, old Dr. Bentley, to whom he had sent a copy of his English Iliad. "A very pretty poem, Mr. Pope, a very pretty poem, but not Homer," was the critic's honest reply. Bentley, in this answer, not only hit the nail on the head, but drove it in and clinched it. Mr. 1845.] Principles of Translation. 227 Pope, thinking it his duty to write an Iliad as Homer would have written it in English, made in fact just such an Iliad as Homer would have made, had Homer been Mr. Pope. But as no two men could be more opposite in genius to each other, so no two works could differ more widely in spirit, manner and coloring than Homer's Iliad and Pope's Iliad; Homer's is Homer, and Pope's is a very pretty poem, but not Homer. The little Greek which Pope is known to have had, made an important distinction between him and Homer; Pope read his original with great difficulty, and had a very shadowy appreciation of its nicer beauties; he was very ignorant of the local scenery which is painted in immortal colors upon the Homeric canvas; he knew little or nothing of the infinite flexibility of the Grecian mind, which is embodied in the myriad sublime or graceful shapes of Homer's panoramic, all-comprehensive genius; he was a dwarfed and feeble man, dwelling all his days in the close air of the study, while Homer roamed from country to country, from continent to isle, visiting "the cities of many men," and studying "their mind." Homer was equally at home ashore and afloat, among the mountains and on the mountain waves. Not a scene of beautiful Grecian nature that was not imperishably stamped on his mind, and wrought out with unapproachable fidelity in his works. He looked with loving eye (the story of his blindness is all a fable) upon every form of human life, and every work of the hand and mind of man. Pope was a spiteful satirist, nursing in the morbid self-concentrativeness of an unsympathizing life the petty jealousies and malignant passions which made him a viper in his day, and have cut him off in a great measure from the love of posterity. His associations were modern, narrow and personal; his tastes were conventional. His knowledge of antiquity was limited and vague; his mind was thoroughly un-grecian and un-homeric. It was enslaved to the tyranny of a French critical code, and had nothing of the Grecian free and natural movement had little simplicity and less modesty. For Homer's precise and graphic words, he substituted the sounding generalities of good tea-drinking Queen Anne's age; for the infinite variety of the Homeric hexameter, changing with every object of description and every shifting passion, and echoing to the sense with |