consideration upon which we have been so diffuse on the quality of the style: the other is this-we foresee that, before Goethe is finally dismissed to that oblivion which inevitably awaits all fantastic fopperies that have no foundation in nature and good sense, a considerable quantity of discussion must be gone through. The startling audacity of phis admirers which has gone on from extravagance to extravagance, cannot but have produced some little impression, and may possibly, for a short time, sustain that impression: and the way in which this will naturally be dissipated, we suppose will be chiefly by successive translations of his works, and by a course of critical wrangling, in which, as in other cases, good sense will finally prevail. Meantime, before that result is achieved, and in proportion as it is likely to be achieved, the fury of his admirers will grow keener and keener: and amongst others we may come in for our share of the Seven Vials, (query Phials?) of wrath, which they will empty upon us poor Anti-Goths. And amongst other kind things which they will say of us, this will be one, or would have been one however but for what has now passed-viz. that we had presumed to judge of Goethe's own Wilhelm Meister by the English translation. We have thought it right, therefore, to show that we were aware of the defects of that translation, and we presume that the translator will himself be of opinion that he is in some degree indebted to us, as we have not passed his work under any vague and general review, but have distinctly pointed out the faults we complain of; and these are all of a nature to be removed.

Having however confined our critique to its merits in point of elegance, without any consideration of its relation to the original,-a question will naturally be put to us on its pretensions to fidelity as a translation. We shall acknowledge therefore that writing at this moment in a situation where we could not easily borrow a German Wilhelm Meister, we have not thought it worth while to pause for the purpose of any minute comparison: especially as in an author such as Goethe, with so little of colloquial. idiom or of anything

which can embarrass the rawest novice, gross mistranslation is not much to be apprehended. Some errors or oversights however we have observed which have surprised us: such for instance as a passage in which some woman upon some occasion or other is said to have "hopped" into the garden. The German word is probably hüpfte, which is not hopped. Bounded would better express the sense: the word hüpfen is often applied to the fawn-like motions of a graceful child, whereas, the English hop' always expresses a most undiguified motion.-At p. 154, vol. i. occurs the following passage: "I have laughed a quarter of an hour for my own hand: I will laugh for ever when I think of the looks they had." Now, as the expression " for my own hand" has in this situation no meaning at all (no other person but the speaker having witnessed the object of her laughter), we feel some curiosity to know what is the expression in the original. Is it possible that it can be vor der hand—an idiomatic expression for at present, off-hand, &c.?--The most remarkable mistranslation however is one which occurs in "The Confessions of a Fair Saint." Braut is here perseveringly translated Bride. Now the German Braut differs in a most memorable point from the English bride. For in England a woman does not become a bride till the precise moment when in Germany she ceases to be one. A young woman in Germany passes through a triple metamorphosis: first she is wooed, and rules her lover as elsewhere with maiden sovereignty: next, she is betrothed to him; that is, she solemnly agrees to be his wife, with the knowledge and participation in this contract of her legal guardians; and now it is that she is called his bride; with which name, the connexion assumes a greater solemnity and tenderness-and invests the lover with something like fraternal rights. Finally, the marriage is solemnized: after which she ceases to be his bride, and is called his wife. In one circumstance the English and the German bride agree, viz. that each (to express it in a coarse way) is taken out of the market, the pretensions of all other suitors being excluded whilst the connexion lasts; with this im

portant difference however, that in England the connexion is indissoluble, in Germany not so. A sentence in a German tale, now lying on our table, illustrates this:-" Miss had tried the pleasant state of bride three times at the least; but unfortunately had never proceeded to graduate as wife, having in some unaccountable way always relapsed into a mere expectant spinster." (Lustige Erzählungen, von F. Laun, Berlin, 1803.) When nothing then is indicated by the word braut but the exclusion of other suitors, it would be pedantic to refuse translating it bride: in the present case however, this error must be peculiarly puzzling to English readers, because they soon find that the lady never does complete her engagements, but remains unmarried, and therefore cannot in any English sense be intelligibly styled a bride. Not to insist however invidiously on errors of this nature, we

shall conclude our notice of the English Wilhelm Meister with two remarks apparently inconsistent but yet in fact both true: first, that the translation too generally, by the awkward and German air of its style, reminds us painfully that it is a translation; and, in respect to fidelity therefore, will probably on close comparison appear to have aimed at too servile a fidelity. Secondly that, strange as it may appear, the verses which are scattered through the volumes-and which should naturally be the most difficult part of the task-have all the ease of original compositions; and appear to us executed with very considerable delicacy and elegance. Of a writer, who has shown his power to do well when it was so difficult to do well, we have the more right to complain that he has not done well in a case where it was comparatively easy. But now for Goethe.

(To be concluded in our next Number.)

THE HAYMARKET THEATRE.

Married and Single. A NEW Small comedy made for summer use by Mr. Poole, one of the cleverest and luckiest of our comic dramatists, has been produced with great success at this warm little theatre-and if good acting, and light easy writing can have any influence on the playgoers of this metropolis-the benches will not be untenanted when Mr. Poole's petite comedy is performed. It is not quite so pleasant to see a play acted at the New Haymarket, as it was at the old plain panneled house: you are not so mixed up with the actors. In the present building the boxes are as small and upright as the car of a balloon; and the audience appears to be constantly preparing for an asIf Married and Single had been played at the Old Haymarket, it would doubtless have been as well followed, and as much talked of, as Teazing Made Easy, in which poor Tokeley split the sides of the town; but jokes and merry characters become dulled and deadened by being exercised on a formal stage.

cent.

It is pretty clear that Mr. Poole has been requested to take measure of Mr. Farren; and as it is also pretty clear that a suit of only one AUG. 1824.

particular shape will fit this performer, it requires a nice caution so to vary the fringes and decorations, as to give the dress the appearance of novelty. Mr. Farren's peculiar forte is the Old Beau,-the Gallant Sadboy, the Lord Ogleby, not boiled quite so hard!-Brummell in Love! -a mixture of Tom Shuffleton and Lord Chesterfield. One of the newspapers has told a little anecdote about a Red Lion, with reference to Mr. Farren, which is not inapplicable. Mr. Farren, let him play what he will, must introduce the character to Lord Ogleby. The wisest thing, therefore that an author can do is to float with the tide of the actor's talent, and this in the present instance Mr. Poole has done with a great deal of ability. Beau Shatterley is an old man, who, like Langan, will not confess himself beaten, though his own constitution and all his friends tell him that he is. fights up against old age with all his might, encountering it with dress, wine, and gallantry, as fiercely as though he were a lad from Eton, with enough of loose money to buy him a loose life. He wears jockey boots a knowing hat -a docked coat-a stable-yard waistcoat. keeps late hours for the head-ache

He

He.

keeps a saucy valet for his nephew -keeps a lady for his purse-and boasts of continual vices in order to put himself off as a rakehelly young fellow. But he is Old Beau Shatterley after all-his shrunken legs sneak in his boots-his back bends beneath a broad cut coat, and his face looks a lie to his impudent Gad-dammee of a hat. The character, as sketched by the author, is thus well fitted-up by Mr. Farren; and though very many of the situations are extravagant, and the colouring of this particular character is a little overwrought, still there is so much of whim and smartness, that we are carried, laughter and all, rapidly through the three acts, and are not allowed breath or time to cavil as critics.

The piece itself, which we rather think is a very free translation, appears to have been written with haste, and got up in a moment of necessity (a moment of no great scarcity at a theatre), with as much speed as possible. To this unwise rapidity is to be attributed several half-formed jokes, vapid puns, and unnatural situations. The characters all seem to have wanted a quiet reconsideration, to give them that finish which at present they are deficient in.

The plot is extremely simple. Beau Shatterley is old, rich, and racketty. His nephew is young, in debt, and a lover. The difficulties of the nephew are visited upon the uncle, who gets into a lawyer's hands, and thence into a bailiff's hands, by being a little too forward. This is out of the frying-pan into the fire. A married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Bickerton, wage tender war throughout the comedy, and a varlet of a valet fills up the interstices with plotting for his young master, and feeding the absurd gallantries of the Old Beau. An Irish Captain is lugged in by the shoulders, always the broadest handle for taking hold of, in order to deliver a challenge from himself to a man who has not offended him-as Sir Lucius O'Trigger has done before him; and Ferret, a nice little sharp-nosed lawyer, who looks well able to find flaws or make them, hunts the old buck, Shatterley, through every hole and corner. Perhaps the best scenes are where he and Old Shatterley are concerned.

Farren, as we have said, played with great cleverness. Poor old Pope, as Bickerton, shook his Henry the Sixth hands, as he shook them 30 years ago, and quite as well; Cooper is a little hard, but exercise on the boards of a small theatre will take the starch out of his manner more than he or the public can imagine. Mr. W. West, as Ferret, was a Ferret itself,-a lawyer!-a common lawyer. He is a famous little fellow indeed, and worthy to have a gold cup presented to him by a deputation from the Attorneys of the Insolvent Court. Mrs. Glover played with remarkable spirit in Mrs. Bickerton. The other ladies were all very well, if any inquiry is made after them.

THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.

The Monkey Island-A New Panto

mime.

This theatre opened during the early part of the month, with a company which ought to make the Haymarket shake in its shoes. Braham, Mathews, Miss Kelly, the Grimaldis, and several others, in themselves sufficient to draw crowded houses from all others. Mr. Arnold seems resolved on trying his strength with his rivals; and if he do not carry off, for a season, the affections of that jilt, the public, we know nothing of her gew-gaw affections.

A new pantomime from the pen of the unwearied Mr. Peake, (a pantomime from a pen seems odd enough, but so it is,) was produced, and has amused for its time. But a pantomime wants room, and Farley, and Old Grimaldi, and Grieve, and a thousand other inestimables; old tricks, new tricks, cattle, space, bright scenery, and distance-at Covent-Garden all these excellencies are to be met with-but at the English Opera House, the essence only of a pantomime is to be got at. We tremble lest Mr. Barnes should totter up against us, and put his pigtail in our eye; and there is always good reason to apprehend the arrival of Joe Grimaldi flap into one's lap. The opening scenes with the monkies as inhabitants, chancellors, judges, and such things, were really very laughable-and many of the tricks were quick and abstruse. But still, if we may be pardoned, we like a winter pantomime. It is hot work to see Grimaldi except in a hard frost.

Der Freyschütz; or, The Seventh Bullet.

This piece which, on account of its magic, and its magic music, has been completely turning all the halfturned heads of Germany-has at length met with an English manager bold enough to hazard the dangerous expense and risk of producing it in England; and a company brave and potent enough to do its mysteries and its music ample justice. The original drama, which is, to judge by the English copy, but lonely and injudiciously put together, is founded on one of the traditional tales of Germany, which has long been listened to in that country, and valued for its decided horror. This tale has been admirably translated by a very able writer of the present day, and may be read by those, who love to dram with horror, in a work called "Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations." It will be seen that the plot of the drama, which is pretty closely adhered to we understand on the English stage, varies materially from the story.Indeed no audience would endure to have a lover shoot his mistress to serve the devil, as is the case in the tale. How great are the Germans at Satanic writing! The devil is their Apollo! The piece has been produced by Mr. Arnold with no limit to care or expense:-in truth we did not, and could not believe it possible, until we saw with our own eyes, that a small summer theatre could afford us such a scene of devilry and witchery as the one now effected nightly. The diminutive stage, like Kean in one of his happiest nights, seems to expand with the spirit of the scene, until there appears no limit to its space and wonders. The scenery itself is not, we believe, new-but it is peopled with goblins and creeping things, numerous enough, we should suppose, to fill the great desart!- The principal scene is where the huntsman Caspar casts the magic balls for his rifle,-balls which go unerringly to the mark; and as the charming goes on, the birds and evil things swarm thicker and faster, until at the seventh bullet, the stage is one mass of fire and wing and reptile! Perhaps a slight sketch of the story may not be uninteresting::

Kimo, an old huntsman, lives in

the forest with his wife and daughter, on a farm which he holds as a tried marksman. He resolves that his daughter Agnes shall marry a good shot, as the farm will only be kept in the family by such a prudent match. The girl is attached to Rodolph, a forest youth, who is all the father can desire:-she is beloved, however, by a huntsman, named Caspar, who has made a compact with an evil spirit, and uses magic balls. Rodolph, at the opening of the drama, is under the malignant influence of a charm, which frustrates all his sports, and turns aside every bullet he fires. The trial day is at hand, on which occasion his skill, as a shot, is to be proved-and on his success depends his union with Agnes. Caspar, who is jealous of his fortune with the girl, hints that he might secure her if he would have recourse to the magic balls-and the hope of securing his love leads him to promise a meeting with Caspar at the glen, at night. Rodolph frames an excuse to his love as the hour approaches, and, in spite of mysterious warnings, keeps his fatal promise. Caspar, in the mean time, whose days are numbered, offers to Zamiel, the evil spirit, a fresh victim if he may be spared a three year's longer existence. The bargain is made: in a magic circle the seven bullets are cast, by the owl's shriek and to unearthly light!—

Six shall go true!

And the seventh askew !
Six shall achieve,

And the seventh deceive! The trial day comes, and the six sure bullets have been expendedthe seventh, which the spirit is to direct, Caspar trusts will kill the bride, Agnes; but the spirit directs it on Caspar himself-and the desolator is laid desolate !-The piece concludes with the wedding of the young hunter and his Agnes!

Such is briefly the plot of the Drama; of course the German story has not half so happy a conclusion. The Bride is killed by the bullet, the last of sixty and three, and the Hunter goes mad in the forest. The Spirit is managed with great effect in the piece, and his appearance amidst the clashing branches at the casting of the seventh bullet is awful. It is almost worthy of that fine

gloomy description of the flight of Zamiel, in the original story, after he has secured his victim, which we cannot resist giving in the translator's own words.

6

"The black horseman turned away his horse, and said with a gloomy solemnity Thou dost know me! The very hair of thy head, which stands on end, confesses for thee that thou dost! I am He whom at this moment thou namest in thy heart with horror!'--So saying, he vanished, followed by the dreary sound of withered leaves, and the echo of blasted boughs falling from the trees beneath which he had stood!"

All persons concerned in the bringing forward of this wondrous drama appear to have been inspired with an anxiety to do their parts to the utmost. The little bog-toads crawl about, as if they themselves were terrified at the scene. All the principal characters are well filled. Braham, as Rodolph, not only sang better than ever on the first night, but acted with a feeling which we never before detected in him. But the effect of the music was upon him, and he was, in truth, under the influence of a charm. He performed and gave a Grand Scena, which seemed to roll around the air like thunder. Mr. H. Phillips was poor after such a singer; but one or two songs he gave with more energy than usual. Bartley played Old Kimo with a good heart; and Mr. Bennet as Caspar, imitated Macready, and beat the original hollow. Mr. T. P. Cooke was Zamiel. He is by far the best bad spirit that ever stalked the earth—he is so good, that we only wish he may be able to give up the part when he pleases. Miss Noel is a quiet feeling singer, but her voice and manner are both occasionally too flat. Miss Povey sang with great spirit, and as an actress she is decidedly making way, It remains but to speak of the music, which, of its kind, is really beyond all ordinary praise or conception. Some of the critics have said it is not so sweet or so good as Mozart's :-Pshaw! it was never intended to be sweet! it is appalling, terrific, sublime! It giveth not "Airs from Heaven," hut, "Blasts from Hell." From the Overture to the

very last note, the composer, Weber, seems to have called upon Zamiel, and to have offered up to him notes which would go into his very soul! There is a depth, a wildness, which frights the mind while it charms the ear; and we will confidently say that no music, not even Mozart's, was ever heard with such breathless attention and earnestness as this extraordinary production of Weber. It is a great work!

DAVIS'S AMPHITHEATRE.

The Battle of Waterloo is being fought over and over again here with as much fury as the genuine one!There is a Duke of Wellington, in Wellingtons, quite a match for the true man, and fit to run in a curricle with his Grace!--And there is a General Hill-and a Marquis of Anglesea and other men of might, true fac similes of those valorous soldiers!

Then there is Napoleon Bonaparte, curiously exact-broad shoulderedwell limbed-sallow-serious-plain in the hair-and with an indisputable featherless cocked hat. The only odd thing was the hearing him speak! We have seen so many silent likenesses, that the effect of a speaking Napoleon made us start.

The gunpowder does its best, and the horses are alive and dead just as the chance of war directs. It is really worth going to the house if only to exercise the drum of the ear!

But there is a rider in the ring, worth going miles to see-a Mons. Ducrow, the king of horsemanship, one whose genius clearly that way tends. He is the first true horseman that ever gave a meaning to the display of fine riding. He shows the attitudes of the ancient statues ;— represents a peasant going to the fields to reap-getting weary-remembering an appointment with his mistress and hastening to see her, until he seems breathless with his flight!-All this you see distinctly, although he is standing on a horse at full speed, the whole time. The savage horse which he catches in the ring, and then rides, at first awkwardly and at last skilfully, without saddle or bridle, is a fine picture. We advise all those who like to see a genius, be his line what it may, to hasten to Ducrow. He looks like a handsome enthusiast, when he is well on the horse.