It may seem odd that we should associate with this mighty book – this terrible ninety-gun ship – such a little painted pleasure-boat as Miss (or Mrs) Burt’s miscellaneous collection of translations from German lyric poets. But we are concerning ourselves here simply with translation – not at all with Kant’s philosophy or with German lyrics considered in themselves, and these two volumes happen to be the specimens of translation most recently presented to our notice. With regard to prose, we may very generally use Goldsmith’s critical recipe, and say that the translation would have been better if the translator had taken more pains; but of poetical attempts we are often sure that no amount of pains would produce a satisfactory result. And so it is with Miss Burt’s Specimens of the German Poets. She appears to have the knowledge and the industry which many translators want, but she has not the poetic power which makes poetical translations endurable to those acquainted with the originals. Amongst others, however, who have no such acquaintance, Miss Burt’s translations seem to have been in some demand, since they have reached a second edition. She has been bold enough to attempt a version of Goethe’s exquisite Zueignung (Dedication), and here is a specimen of her rendering. Goethe sings with divine feeling and music –

Für andre wächst in mir das edle Gut,

Ich kann und will das Pfund nicht mehr vergraben,

Warum sucht’ ich den Weg so sehnsuchtsvoll,

Wenn ich ihn nicht den Brüdern zeigen soll?

Miss Burt follows him much as a Jew’s harp would follow a piano –

Entombed no longer shall my talent be,

That treasure I amass, shall others share?

To find the road – oh, why such zeal display,

If I guide not my brethren on their way?

A version like this bears about the same relation to the original as the portraits in an illustrated newspaper bear to the living face of the distinguished gentlemen they misrepresent; and considering how often we hear opinions delivered on foreign poets by people who only know those poets at second hand, it becomes the reviewer’s duty to insist again and again on the inadequacy of poetic translations.