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calls the peripatetic mode; which appears, however in the sequel, to mean getting on board a fast sailing packet at Providence.' But before leaving this part of the country, our author gives the following very judicious and impartial summary of the character of its various regions. Amongst ourselves, we call the former [New Englanders] Yankies; but foreigners have dubbed us all with that title. The latter [of the south] according to their respective states, are denominated Virginians, Kentuckians, Georgians. The New Englanders, considered as one body, represented in an individual, are a sanctimonious, sober, good-looking, and withal, an enterprising neighbor, full of excellent thoughts and new inventions. The southern people, considered in the same manner, are a hospitable, complaisant, as well as a profane, slave-driving, and swarthy looking personage, who however keeps a sharp eye to his own aggrandisement, and that of his country. The middle states, among which New York stands prominent, hold that just medium, which cannot fail to produce respect and vene

ration.'

With these reflections, our venerable traveller draws near to New York, and approaches the Wallabout, with throbbing exultation. Landing at Crane-wharf, he finds, as he observes, a new subject of congratulation, in perceiving the rising columns of a new market, and treads the hallowed spot with an imagination glowing, no doubt, at the sirloins and haunches, that are to be. The concluding remarks evince a naïveté so amiable, that we cannot forbear to quote them. 'Our remarks are now more than sufficiently protracted. With "a simple tale," [qu. the author of this striking quotation] we have made an effort for the honor of the nation, and not altogether as maliciousness might whisper, for the advantage of ourselves, to unfold some of the natural beauties, and artificial magnificence of North American scenery, and until that voice, which bids the lover to clamber down the precipice to pluck for his mistress a flower, or the patriot to behold unmoved the shafts of hatred and malice aimed at his heart, again speaks, we will throw down the pen.' It would indeed be a piece of most gratuitous malice, for any one to whisper that our author has written for his own advantage. We profess not to understand the meaning of the last sentence, but we suspect Messrs Myers and Smith hope by this time, that the said voice which is to lead Mr Stansbury to give them another book to print, will not very soon speak again.

The truth is, for it is time to speak seriously, this book is too bad. There is a great deal of stuff daily issuing from the press, and as most of it comes with its own corrective of dullness, it seems unkind for the critic to step in, to hurry it to its doom. One circumstance only has determined us to notice the work before us. Large numbers of the inhabitants of our cities resort annually to that scene of glory and beauty, presented to them in a part of the tour, which this book pretends to describe. All ought to do it, who can possibly spare time and money for the journey. Niagaram vidi ought almost to be the American's pass word. Now in the hurry of packing up for the lakes, and in that want of some sort of guide-book, which most feel on such an occasion, it may, by some evil chance, befall a traveller of weak nerves to see Mr Stansbury's tour to the lakes and the Canadas, in a shop window, to buy it, and reserving the perusal till he arrives at the spot, to put it unopened in his trunk. It is plain that no dependence could be placed on the continued sanity of a man, who, under these circumstances, should arrive at his destination, and opening Mr Stansbury's book for directions at the falls, chance on the following passage:

Down drop the brimful oceans, crash upon crash, loud peal the hollow rattling thunders. As a thousand crags rifted at once by lightning from the top of a lofty mountain, dart headlong, crumbling to the distant valley, and reiterating with deafening loudness, stupify the dismayed (?) inhabitant, over whose head they rebounded, so flies Niagara over us desperately swift; and madly bellowing as it recoils high above the trembling earth, astounds the affrighted senses of the presumptuous mortals who thus dare to break into this worse than Tartarean dungeon. An awful plunge! Dreadful uproar echos round the deep abyss, whilst the never ceasing war of jarring elements break, quiver, burst, and roll around,

As if the phrenzi'd demons of the air,

Loosed from their chains of adamant, had met

In fierce encounter.

Mingling yells and groans of horror appear to unite with the class of sparkling armor, and the angry spirits of the torrent from their watery caverns seem to exclaim loud and threatening, begone! We obey the summons, and hurrying precipitately away, rejoin a more secure and comfortable station.'

ART. XVI.-A translation of the first book of Ovid's Tristia, in heroic English verse, with the original text. By Francis Arden, Counsellor at Law. New York, 1821.

WHATAVER may be thought of the merits of this author's poetry, the candor of his preface should certainly secure him from illnatured criticism. The following exposition of the object to which his efforts were principally directed, will materially assist the reader in forming an impartial and thorough judgment of his success.

The present essay claims to be no more than an experimental effort, in which the translator has so markedly preferred the words and order of his text to less restrained attempts at imitative elegance, that in no instance has he dropped expressive terms of the original, or presumed to vary from its manner, unless the genius of our language, or some metrical obstacle, seemed to require the liberty. He is not conscious, however, of needing much indulgence either for what he has omitted, or may in any way have ventured to change.

A course so straightened not only diminishes opportunities for ornamental display, but renders the display itself proportionably difficult; the reader is therefore cautioned against anticipations of high poetical beauties, and intreated to rest satisfied with a degree of smoothness in the composition, exceeding, perhaps, what its alleged closeness might have prepared him to expect.

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If it be asked, why this has not been executed in greater conformity to the prevailing style of verse translation? I answer, that an attempt to render a Latin Poem such as it would appear if originally composed in English, seems, to my apprehension, rather calculated to cover the freedoms of its translator, than susceptible of attainment; that my intent was not to exhibit Ovid in the folds of paraphrastic drapery, but to convey what he wrote; and that I was particularly desirous to learn how my manner of executing this intent would be received.

I will not attempt to deprecate severity of criticism, by enumerating the disadvantages under which my little work was completed, and yet these were perhaps as great as have attended the presentation of any ancient classic in modern language; my best excuse is in the fidelity of the version; and I have only to request, that the critical reader will bear in mind the goal at which I purposed to arrive, and by comparing my lines with the original, ascertain how nearly I have approached it.'

Modest as these promises are, it is a high as well as just praise, to say that they are amply fulfilled. Of all the fanguages generally studied in this country or in England, the

economical and political observations and anecdotes from the recent military history of the times, into the heart of Switzerland. His description of the catastrophe of Goldau is remarkably good. This calamitous event is well known to our readers, from the fine description of it by Mr Buckminster, contained in a letter written from the spot but three weeks after the occurrence of the fatal disaster, and since published in the volume of his sermons. 'The summer of 1806,' says Mr Simond, had been very rainy, and on the first and second of September it rained incessantly. New crevices were observed in the flank of the mountain, a sort of cracking noise was heard internally, stones started out of the ground, and detached fragments of rock rolled down the mountain. At two o'clock in the afternoon of the second of September, a large rock became loose, and in falling raised a cloud of black dust. Toward the lower part of the mountain, the ground seemed pressed down from above, and when a stick or spade was driven in, it moved of itself. A man, who had been digging in his garden, ran away from fright at these extraordinary appearances. Soon a fissure larger than all the others was observed; insensibly it increased; springs of water ceased all at once to flow; the pine trees of the forest absolutely reeled; birds flew away screaming. A few minutes before five o'clock, the symptoms of some mighty catastrophe became still stronger. The whole surface of the mountain seemed to glide down, but so slowly as to afford time to the inhabitants to escape. An old man, who had often predicted some such disaster, was quietly smoking his pipe when told by a young man running by, that the mountain was in the act of falling. He rose and looked out, but came into his house again, saying he had time for another pipe. The young man continuing to fly, was thrown down several times, and escaped with difficulty. Looking back, he saw the house carried off all at once. Another inhabitant being alarmed took two of his children and ran away with them, calling to his wife to follow with the third. But she went in for another, who still remained-Marianne, aged five. Just then Francisca Ulrich, their servant, was crossing the room with this Marianne, whom she held by the hand, and saw her mistress. "At that instant," as Francisca afterwards said, "the house (which was of wood) appeared to be torn from its foundation, and spun round and round like a tetotum. I was sometimes on my head and sometimes on my feet, and

of primary and almost of exclusive attention; that he resolved that every expression in the original, should be represented in his version, and that not only virtually but actually. His ideas on this subject differ widely from ours. We cannot but assent to the general opinion, that in translating an ancient classic, it should be our first object to express his meaning as he would have done had the English language been that of his age and country. Could this rule be completely obeyed, no other would be requisite. Since, however, much of the merit of the celebrated writers of Greece and Rome is necessarily lost in every modern version, a translator should be not only allowed but required, to repair as far as possible an injury, which he cannot prevent, by softening the faults or heightening the beauties of the original, to any extent not inconsistent with a general fidelity. To say that he shall expose all his author's defects, especially those which are accidental and not habitual and characteristic, is to require a degree of exactness like that of the Chinese manufacturers, who copy with the nicest care, not only the shape and colour, but even the rents and flaws, of every article of dress or furniture, which is given to them as a pattern.

The liberty of embellishment is now as universally conceded to translators as that of retrenchment, and though it may seem more questionable, rests on similar reasons. There is as much truth as point in the well known remark of DeLille, 'on doit être quelquefois superieur à son original, precisément parcequ'on lui est très inferieur.'- Slaves we are and work on another man's soil,' says Dryden of the whole race of translators, and there is no reason why they should be prohibited entirely from making improvements, which redound to the benefit of their masters. Indeed the comparative advantage of servile and of liberal (we do not say licentious) poetical translation, is a question which we consider as fully settled, by the different fortunes of Pope's and of Cowper's Iliad. Cowper has given us an exact image of the original, is indeed a popular maxim, but few would be willing to qualify themselves for judging of its truth, by reading through his version. That of Pope on the contrary, notwithstanding all that has been said of its unfaithfulness, by a long line of minute critics, from his day to ours, is the only medium, through which the beauties of the Grecian bard are known to the generality of English and American readers. Yet though we cannot approve of the

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