nent service a rendre à la littérature, que de transporter d'une langue à l'autre les chefs d'oeuvre de l'esprit humain. Il existe si peu de productions du premier rang; le génie, dans quelque genre que ce soit, est un phénoméne tellement rare; que si chaque nation moderne en etoit réduite à ses propres trésors, elle seroit toujours pauvre. D'ailleurs, la circulation des idées est, de tous les genres de commerce, celui dont les avantages sont les plus certains." Deeply impressed with the truth of these sentiments, and consequently with the high dignity and importance of the duties I have undertaken, I feel almost reluctant to confess, by way of apology for some of the defects which I cannot but fear my Work will exhibit, my comparatively recent acquaintance with the language of the great Poet whom I undertake to illustrate. It is not full five years ago—since the publication, in 1838, of my two volumes of Collected Poems-that I commenced the study of German; but it is nearly as long since I first fixed upon some of Schiller's lyrical inspirations with feelings of love and delight which have never ceased to animate me in the whole course of my further acquaintance with those productions. I then took to the "Song of the Bell," and began to translate

it by way of exercise merely, and in ignorance of any previous English version except one of a very prosaic character, from which I am not conscious of having derived any assistance beyond that of interpretation; but I felt the passion with which I was already inspired augment with the progress of my acquaintance; and it received a new and extraordinary impulse when, under the pressure of a severe domestic affliction, I was driven to resort to mental labour and discipline as a resource in aid of higher motives, and derived pleasure and consolation from the conquest of difficulties -such as those presented by the philosophical poems-which, under other circumstances, might very probably have repelled and subdued me. And here I should be doing the greatest injustice to my own sentiments if I failed to acknowledge my obligations to Dr. Anster, the translator of Faust," as my chief encourager, and able and zealous adviser, in this most arduous stage of an enterprize which, without his support and assistance, I should probably never have attempted; nor yet those which I owe to a nearer friend and connexion, whom, though I must not name, I cannot refrain from thus indicating as the constant associate of my labours, and partaker of

the pleasures I have derived from surmounting them. To the liberal kindness of Professor Bernays, aided by his intimate acquaintance with the peculiarities of his native language, its literature and philosophy, I am also indebted for much of important elucidation and valuable suggestion throughout the progress of my Work.

I must content myself, in this place, with merely indicating the principal sources of assistance I have derived from published works, to which reference is frequently made in the prefatory notices affixed to the following poems-more especially the critical biographies of the Poet by Carlyle, Schwab, and lastly, by Hoffmeister, whose voluminous compilation comprises nearly all that has been said or written by others, together with a great deal of excellent criticism by the author himself, and together also with a copious analysis of all Schiller's writings. But I must not omit my acknowledgments to my friend Mr. Impey for his permission to insert his already published version of the "Cranes of Ibycus," in lieu of an inferior one, which alone I could have hoped to substitute; and to the contributors of the several other pieces marked only with the

Christian name, or with initials, by which my own labours have been lightened, and the value of this little Volume greatly augmented.

I should also be wrong not to be duly sensible of other obligations, of a literary nature, which I am under to some who have preceded me in the task of translation, although it is in the instance of Lord Francis Egerton only that I am aware of any acts of designed appropriation of either sentiment or expression, and of his Lordship alone that I have therefore to ask pardon for those more than casual features of resemblance or imitation to which his admirable versions of the Resignation, the Ideale, the lines An Minna, and some others, afforded an irresistible temptation, and to which, in the case of the Siegesfest, as being in themselves more direct, I have more particularly called the reader's attention.

I have thus, I believe, faithfully indicated the principal sources from which I have derived assistance in the formation of an edifice, not originally meditated, but which has grown, brick by brick, to its present degree of completeness; and I can only venture to hope that the structure, such as it is, may not be found altogether inadequate to

the design of exhibiting, in its true proportions, the mind of a writer, of the very highest order of genius, whose affinity to the greatest of our living English poets is too remarkable to escape the notice of even the most superficial observer.

In one unhappy particular, and for a brief and stormy period of his poetical existence, the genius of Schiller may indeed be found more closely still to resemble that of the most illustrious among the recent denizens of our " England's Helicon." But the querulous and gloomy scepticism of the Resignation, and the more splendid profaneness of the Götter Griechenlands, are amply atoned by the spirit of Christian humility and submission, the deep sense of a superintending providence, and the noble aspirations after immortality, which mark so many of the poet's later effusions; and his lofty preference of the "things of the spirit" over the paltry objects and allurements of sense, will for ever place him at an immeasurable distance, in respect of moral grandeur, above our equally distinguished, but less fortunate, Byron.