“Verily, given a printing-press upon German soil,” says Dr. Furness, “and lo! an essay on Hamlet.” England and the United States, as might be expected, vie with Germany in contributing to the literature of this play. All the sister-nations of Europe, too, have their own essays on Hamlet. Numberless are those who confidently take up the task enjoined on Horatio by the dying Prince:—

“Report me and my cause aright.”

It behooves one therefore who would put forth another paper upon Hamlet to show cause at the outset why he should not be looked upon as a public enemy.

Perhaps no reproach is oftener addressed to those who call themselves philologists than that they are unconcerned with that beauty which has furnished a distinctive epithet for the word ‘literature’ in the phrase belles lettres, that they lack imagination and insight, and that they are quite unfitted to impart to others a sense of the spiritual values which inhere in the productions that form the subject-matter of their studies. An eloquent writer, who is himself a capable investigator, has recently presented this view in an essay which deserves the attention of every teacher of literature, and especially of every teacher of English literature.

Of the poems ascribed to Chiaro Davanzati, a Florentine of the thirteenth century, one of the most interesting is the following sonnet:

Di penne di paone e d' altre assai

Vestita la corniglia a corte andau;

Ma già no lasciava per ciò lo crai

E a riguardo sempre cornigliau.

5 Gli augelli, che la sguardar, molto splai

Dele lor penne ch' essa li furau;

Lo furto le ritorna scheme e guai,

Che ciascun di sua penna la spogliau.

9 Per te lo dico, novo canzonero,

Che t' avesti le penne del Notaro

E vai furando lo detto stranero;

12 Si co' gli augei la corniglia spogliaro,

Spoglieriati per falso menzonero

Se fosse vivo Jacopo Notaro.

“The words, classical and romantic, although, like many-other critical expressions, sometimes abused by those who have understood them vaguely or too absolutely, yet define two real tendencies in the history of art and literature. The ‘classic’ comes to us out of the cool and quiet of other times, as the measure of what a long experience has shown will at least never displease us. And in the classical literature of Greece and Rome, as in the classics of the last century, the essentially classical element is that quality of order in beauty, which they possess, indeed, to a pre-eminent degree. It is the addition of strangeness to beauty, that constitutes the romantic character in art; and the desire of beauty being a fixed element in every artistic organisation, it is the addition of curiosity to this desire of beauty that constitutes the romantic temper.”

In the summer of 1814 a group of young men who had known each other in the campaigns of the War of Liberation formed a literary circle in Berlin. They were Count von Kalckreuth, Count von Blankensee, and Wilhelm Hensel (later the celebrated painter who married Fanny Mendelssohn). They soon drew into their group two kindred spirits, Wilhelm von Studnitz and Wilhelm Müller. Müller was the youngest, but was recognized as having the choicest talents, and he became the leader of the group, which was held together by the strong bonds of personal friendship and a common love of poetry. In 1815 they published a volume of their united poems under the title “Bundesblüthen,” which contains the first fruits of Müller's gifts. A somewhat extended search through university libraries in Germany failed to disclose the book, and on going to Berlin I was disappointed that it was not entered among Müller's works in the catalogue of the Royal Library. One day while reading the book-titles under the numerous “Wilhelm Müllers” who occur in that catalogue, I found a cross-reference to the book among the works of quite a different individual. The volume is dated “Berlin 1816. In der Maurerschen Buchhandlung.” I later found another copy (preserving the original cover of blue paper) in the British Museum. Müller's contributions include 20 titles, as follows:

1. An die Leser, 173.

2. Morgenlied am Tage der ersten Schlacht, 174.

3. Erinnerung und Hoffnung, 176.

4. Leichenstein meines Freundes Ludwig Bornemann, 179.

5. Dithyramb. Geschrieben in der Neujahrsnacht 1813, 183.

6. Die zerbrochene Zither. Romanze, 190.

7. Der Verbannte. Romanze, 193.

8. Der Ritter und die Dirne. Romanze, 195.

9. Die Blutbecher. Romanze, 199.

10. Das Band. Romanze, 203.

11. Ständchen, 205.

12. Der Kuss, 207.

13. Der Zephyr, 207.

14. Die erste Rose, 208.

15. Die letzte Rose, 208.

16. Mailiedehen, 209.

17. AmorsTriumph, 210.

18. Weckt sie nicht, 211.

19. Ihr Schlummer, 212.

20. Epigramme:

1. 1. Weihe, 213.

2. 2. Amor und die Muse, 213.

3. 3. Lenz und Amor, 213.

4. 4. Mars und Amor, 214.

5. 5. Apollo als Schäfer, 215.

6. 6. Gruss des Winters, 215.

7. 7. Auf einen Sternseher, 217.

8. 8. Auf den Dichter Krispin, 217.

9. 9.-18. Auf denselben, 217-220.

What verse to use in translating Anglo-Saxon poetry is a question, which, ever since Anglo-Saxon poetry has been thought worth translating, has been discussed over and over again, but unfortunately with as yet no final conclusion. The tendency, however, both among those who have written upon the subject and those who have tried their hand at translating, is decidedly in favor of a more or less close imitation of the original metre. Professor F. B. Gummere, in an article on “The Translation of Beowulf and the Relations of Ancient and Modern English Verse,” published in the American Journal of Philology, Vol. vii (1886), strongly advocates imitating the A.-S. metre. Professor J. M. Garnett, in a paper read before this Association in 1890, sides with him, recanting a previously held belief in the superiority of blank verse. Of the various translations which imitate the A.-S. metre, the most successful, undoubtedly, is the Beowulf of Dr. John Leslie Hall, which appeared in 1892. Stopford Brooke, in his History of Early English Literature, also declares his belief in imitations of the original metre, though in his translations he does not always carry out his beliefs. He lays down the rule—and a very good rule it is—that translations of poetry “should always endeavour to have the musical movement of poetry, and to obey the laws of the verse they translate.” For translating A.-S. poetry, blank verse, he thinks, is out of the question; “ it fails in the elasticity which a translation of Anglo-Saxon poetry requires, and in itself is too stately, even in its feminine dramatic forms, to represent the cantering movement of Old English verse. Moreover, it is weighted with the sound of Shakspere, Milton, or Tennyson, and this association takes the reader away from the atmosphere of Early English poetry.”