than a common malefactor. Priests were torn from the altar, and virgins suffered violation in the arms of their mothers. The booty in ready money exceeded one million of ducats, and that large sum was more than doubled by ransoms and confiscations. The systematic, organised barbarism exceeded all that had been inflicted in earlier ages by the hordes of Alaric, Genseric, or Odoacer. The excesses of an army professing Christianity, subjects of a Catholic monarch, in the sixteenth century, and in the acknowledged capital of the Christian world, have left in the shade the cruelties perpetrated in the ages of ignorance by heathen Huns, Goths, and Vandals. To match their unbridled license, to equal their proceedings in atrocity, we must trace down the pages of modern history, until we arrive, a hundred years later, at the dark chapter which describes the sacking of Magdeburg by the remorseless Tilly. War, the great safety-valve, but at the same time the heaviest scourge of society, has never been exercised in all its gloomy terrors without a redeeming ray of heroism, so completely as in these two memorable instances. A thirst for plunder, the worst of all human passions-the cupidity or exigence of the brigand, and not the martial spirit of the soldierwas in either case the exciting cause.

Bourbon had only attained his thirtyeighth year, when he fell, as described, before the walls of Rome. At the same age died Gustavus of Sweden, on the plains of Lutzen. But the latter perished in a bright field of glory, in a just cause, and with an unblemished reputation.

We have endeavoured to bring under one view all that credible authority has disclosed with regard to two eminent personages, whose lives and characters suggest points of strong comparison. The modern presents a duplicate of the ancient, under very similar circumstances. Whatever may be the influence of times and manners in moulding the actions of men, the general features of human nature will always be found to be the same. In one respect, Coriolanus stands above

Bourbon. He almost redeemed his disloyalty to his country, by pausing in the hour of triumph, and yielding up public resentment to natural affection. Bourbon suffered no touch of feeling to interfere with his steady march of vengeance, on which he was permitted for a time to advance with destructive power. The wrongs of Coriolanus were more exclusively public wrongs. He was driven into banishment by the voice of the majority. His countrymen repudiated him; he was disfranchised, and became, by their own act, a free citizen of the world. The wrongs of Bourbon were private wrongs, the more stinging, perhaps, inasmuch as they arose from personal enmity, jealousy, and ingratitude. Rome was the enemy of Coriolanus. The King, his mother, and Bonnivet, not France, were the enemies of Bourbon. Coriolanus relented under abject supplications. It does not appear that Bourbon was ever cordially invited to return, that the offers of the King to reinstate him were sincere, or that he ever wavered in his schemes of retaliation. On the whole, the conduct of Coriolanus was more defensible, on broad grounds, and the close of his life more consistent with the elevation of his character, Coriolanus sought to punish Rome, rather than to exalt himself. Bourbon hoped to find a throne in the dismemberment of the French monarchy. The vengeance of Coriolanus was lofty and unselfish. That of Bourbon was never separated from personal ambition. We can justify neither entirely, while we may pity and palliate the conduct of both.

It is more easy to find excuses for Bourbon than for either Bernadotte or Moreau, who, in our own days, appeared in arms against their native country, and assisted to strangle her when already gasping beneath the pressure of confederated Europe. They sought to overthrow an ancient rival who had gone beyond them, without caring much by what means the object was accomplished; and the chances are, that neither would have objected to fill his seat had the opportunity presented itself.

J. W. C.

WE hardly know any term sufficiently expressive of the fearful rhythmical strangulation to which this terrible Judge at the Havana has doomed a number of inoffensive Spanish poets, than the one we have prefixed to this article. Any milder term would only mislead the public as to the awful and irrevocable fate that has overtaken these unfortunate bards. If we are too late to move in arrest of judgment, and to suspend, even for a little while, the execution of a sentence, which the more humane sympathies of the age must pronounce unreasonably severe, we, at least, may be able to forewarn such of the surviving Spanish writers as are yet untried (and, thank God! untranslated) to protest, with all their might, against being done to death" by the merciless hands of Mr. Kennedy.

As is usual in all courts of criminal jurisdiction, the judge, before pronouncing, in definite terms, the precise nature of the sentence which he has pre-determined to inflict, looks benignly on the unfortunate culprit in the dock, and reads him a gentle homily on his transgressions, frequently reminding him of the respectable and honest parents whom his delinquencies have now disgraced, and of his own opportunities of improvement and success which are for ever lost. Thus it is with our rhyming Rhadamanthus: before assuming the black cap of the translator, he adopts the bland accents of the preacher, but with a refined cruelty, scarcely to be equalled in the real courts to which we have alluded-while incorrectly praising the modern poets, he unjustly assails their literary progenitors, thus traducing them both in that double sense, which the French language is alone capable of expressing, and which, until we saw Mr. Kennedy's book, we thought only French translated literature, in its most decrepid moments, could possibly produce.

In the premonitory and pre-penal homily which our judicial, but not judicious, translator addresses to his vic

tims, he commences with a misstatement with respect to the older and better literature of Spain, that seems intended as an adroit apology for the tameness of the modern portion that he has undertaken to illustrate - if, indeed, it be not a courageous enunciation that commonplace and insipidity are more valuable attributes of a literature, than originality, and exuberant spirit and vivacity. He says:

"Those writers are very much mistaken who suppose, that consequent upon the long domination of the Moors in Spain, there are to be found in Spanish literature any of the exuberances of style which are considered the principal characteristics of Eastern poetry."

This certainly will be news to those persons who, like ourselves, have been drawn to the study of this rich and gorgeous literature by the very oriental character, the existence of which is here denied, and which, by the teeming fancy and splendid exaggeration of its illustrations, has rendered the drama of Spain one of the most fascinating in the world, notwithstanding the absence of individual characterisation that would be fatal to any other. This judicial blindness as to what is really beautiful and characteristic in Spanish literature, that has fallen on our learned friend, is, perhaps, a key to his entire work, and certainly makes us wonder the less at the complacency with which he puts forth his own miserable rendering of much, that even in competent hands would fail in being highly or permanently attractive.

Our translator proceeds in his introduction, with a comparison between the early literatures of Spain and England, and claims a superiority for them over those of the other European nations; just enough, no doubt, to both, but which, as far as the English is concerned, he seems to forget in a few lines after:

"While the popular poetry of other nations at that period," he says, "was almost

entirely occupied with childish stories of giants and supernatural beings, or in magnifying the outrages of their heroes, and even of their outlaws, the Spanish bards were engaged in celebrating the patriotism and prowess of their Christian warriors, in strains not unworthy of the deeds they commemorated."

We would, by no means, detract from this well-merited tribute to the morality and patriotism of the early Spanish ballads; but we must enter our protest against the sweeping denunciation of giants and supernatural beings, the big people and the little people of fiction and poetry; and, above all, this onslaught on the green-clad foresters of merry Sherwood, and their famous chief, who has ever been

"The English ballad-singer's joy."

We fear "Bold Robin" would have had but poor chance if brought up before the judgment-seat of Mr. Justice Kennedy; and that he would have met the same fate at his hands that eventually overtook his favourite lieutenant, "Little John," who, as our readers will remember, was hanged on Essexbridge, in this our good city of Dublin.

The elevated position and active pursuits of the majority of the Spanish poets, compared with the sedentary habits and social obscurity of those in other countries, is well pointed out by Mr. Kennedy; and the same difference continues down to the present day, as abundantly proved by the interesting memoirs which our author prefixes to his separate specimens. Speaking of the Spanish poets, he says

"Some were of royal rank, others were eminent as statesmen, and others, if not of the same high station, were yet equally engaged in military service or the active business of life. Three of their most favourite poets, Garcillasso de la Vega, Manrique, and Cadahalso, died the death of soldiers, from wounds received in warfare. Ercilla, author of the chief poem in the Spanish language, which may be considered an epic, was a participant in the wars he so graphically describes. Cervantes received three wounds at the battle of Lepanto, by one of which he lost an arm. Calderon de la Barca passed many years of his life in the campaigns in the Low Countries, where he gained great military reputation; and Lope de Vega was one of the few adventurers in the 'Invincible Armada,' who were fortunate enough to return to their native country."-Introduction, p. xiii.

Mr. Kennedy lays down some general principles on the subject of translation, to which it is scarcely necessary to allude, as few will be attracted by a theory which is so indifferently supported by examples. He has, however, such an amusing facility of discovering a peculiar merit in what most persons feel to be a striking defect, that a portion of his observations on this subject must be given. After informing us that "it may be a matter of surprise,"which it certainly is that the Spanish, "though a very sonorous language, cannot be termed a rich one," he continues

"Abounding in long words (sesquipedalia verba) it loses in precision and strength what is gained in sound, and thus the ideas are incumbered where simplification was required. The comparatively monosyllabic character of the English language has in this respect an immense advantage for the translator (!) as it enables him to give the sentiments of the original more concisely than one from it into another."

We shall presently see some specimens of this boasted conciseness:

"Having also more synonyms with different shades of meaning, a greater precision may be lost or gained, according to the circumstances and the judgment applied to them."

Getting courageous as he proceeds in his clear and satisfactory theory, and with an irrepressible feeling of pride in his own successful working of it out, he says:

"Thus a translation may sometimes be superior to the original, from its giving the ideas more distinctly; and as it is the test of good writing to find how it reads in another language, so with really superior authors it may be a matter of little importance in what version their thoughts are expressed."

We are somewhat puzzled by this perplexing and amusing apothegm, and can make nothing of it but that good writing may be translated into bad writing, with a very considerable advantage to the former. Since the days when the magician, in Aladdin, exchanged new lamps for old, no such disinterested exchange has been known to the world of commerce or of letters.

After this flourish of trumpets, our author seems to be somewhat

"Scared at the sound himself had made,"

more amusing than his preliminary boldness

"It is not presumed hereby that the following translations all come under this consideration" (that is in being superior to the original), "but with the advantages above expressed, it may be hoped, that as exotics in a green-house, these flowers of Spanish poetry may be found pleasing representations of what they were in their native soil, even if they cannot be made entirely denizens of our own."-p. xiv.

The paradoxes of our learned translator are amusing enough, but the facility with which he forgets them, and the singular authorities he adduces in support of them, are still more so. Thus, after informing us that translations (meaning his own) may be superior to the originals, and that the monosyllabic character of the English language gives the translator "an immense" advantage in rendering poetry, the melody and harmony of which in the original arise from the very opposite cause, he says " "With the disadvan tage of rhyme, in a foreign language, no apology is requisite for the ruggedness of any lines which the critic may point out. I differ totally from those writers, Coleridge and others, who affect a contempt for finished versification, and rely entirely on the brilliancy of their ideas." This, taken altogether, strikes us as being exquisitely amusing. The courage that ventures to suggest a comparison of such "finished" verses as we shall presently adduce, with those of Coleridge, can only be equalled by the

discrimination that selects the author of “Khubla Khan," "Genevieve,” “Christabel," or "The Ancient Mariner," as the apostle and producer of "unfinished versification." Why, if ever there was an ear attuned to the most perfect melody of versification, and a pen capable of noting down the ravishing harmonies as they arose, they were pre-eminently those of Coleridge. But our translator proceeds-"Those who have had to write nonsense verses' at school or college, have no right to excuse themselves from labouring to make their lines run smoothly." Why those persons who persevere in writing "nonsense verses" after they have left school or college, cannot, with all their labour, "make their lines run smooth," must for ever remain a mystery, seeing that their readers supply them with "sleepers" in abundance.

"In sequence of the remark be fore made," as Mr. Kennedy says, of the stirring and active lives led by the earlier Spanish poets, of the bracing and healthy influences their publie duties had upon their literary labours, he points out how the same causes have led to the same results with respect to their successors. Referring to the authors selected for translation, he says—

"From the memoirs hereafter detailed it may be seen that no fewer than six out of the twelve had to suffer the evils of exile for public or private opinions, of whom three so died, unhappily, in foreign countries. Three others, though not actually exiled, were subjected to long and cruel imprisonment for the same causes, while two out of the remaining three had to take their share of burdens in the public service during the troubled state of the country"-p. xxii.

If to these misfortunes we recal the fact, that the entire twelve have had their poems translated by Mr. Kennedy, we think that the martyrology of genius can scarcely adduce any destiny more relentless.

The public services, the private virtues and the great talents of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (born 1744, died 1811), as well as the accidental circumstance of the priority of his birth, entitle him to the first place in Mr. Kennedy's collection, to which, perhaps, if judged by his poetical writings alone, he would not have the same claim. Compared by his own countrymen to Cicero, by English critics to Montesquieu, and, not inappropriately, by Mr. Kennedy to Edmund Burke, he has left a reputation for probity and active intelligence that both Spaniards and foreigners delight to honour, and which statesmen of all countries would do well to imitate. Even when moving in the more limited sphere of official duty at Seville, where he presided over the criminal courts, his mind was ever active in the acquisition of new knowledge, and his personal exertions ever ready to forward the well-being of the society amid which he was placed. Notwithstanding the occupation of his time by public duties, he found leisure for the acquisition of the English language, mainly for the purpose of studying the great masters of the then new science of political economy.

The change of parties, however, which in Spain are almost always attended by some of the tragic dis

asters of a revolution, overwhelmed this great and good man with repeated misfortunes. A banishment

of seven years from the scene of his triumphs and his labours followed, after a brief interval of prosperity, by an imprisonment of the same duration, and finally, shipwreck and death, are rather serious consequences of what is known in these countries as a change of ministry that constitutional euthanasia, in which the most robust parties expire without a groan. The poetical specimens selected from the writings of this eminent man are three in number-the principal one being a didac tic poem of some length, in the shape of an epistle to a friend. As might be expected, it abounds with just and sensible observations, elevated by moral dignity and a sincere religious conviction highly creditable to the writer, but presenting little to the English reader but what he has been long familiar with from the poems of Young, and Cowper, and many others, and wanting (at least in Mr. Kennedy's version) those graces of style which throw such a charm over the meditations of the English poets.

The epistle is written "On the vain desires and studies of men." After describing a few of the more intellectual aberrations, the poet descends to some of the grosser pleasures and pursuits of life, and we must here present for the first time a specimen of Mr. Kennedy's "finished" versification with its exquisite conciseness of expression of which he has told us so much :

"But if to Bacchus and to Ceres given,

Before his table laid, from morn to even,
At ease he fills himself, as held in stall:
See him his stomach make his god, his all!
Nor earth nor sea suffice his appetite;
Ill-tongued and gluttonous the like
unite: (?)

With such he passes his vain days along, In drunken routs obscene, with toast and song,

And jests and dissolute delights; his aim
To gorge unmeasured, riot without shame,
But soon with these begins to blunt and
lose (?)

Stomach and appetite: he finds refuse
Offended Nature, as insipid food
The savours others delicacies viewed (?)
Vainly from either India he seeks

For stimulants; in vain from art bespeaks
Fresh sauces, which his palate will reject;
His longings heighten'd, but life's vigour
wrecked,

And thus worn out in mid career the cost (?)

Before life ends he finds his senses lost." -pp. 22, 23.

We confess that, though not over much

"To Bacchus and to Ceres given,"

our "senses" must also be "lost." if any precise meaning can be drawn from the greater portion of this mysterious paragraph-grammar and connexion, noun and verb, substantive and adjective, are so jumbled together, that the only distinct idea we can extract from the entire is the foresight of that epicurean gentleman, who, not content with buying his "sauces" ready prepared from Harvey, or some other terrestrial concocter, " 'bespeaks" them from "Art" itself, who, we suppose, has set up in business, and opened shop.

Perhaps the best passage in the poem (if we can use so strong a phrase, when it would be difficult to select even one perfectly correct couplet) is that description of the soi disant philosopher, who attempts