This is not only
a work for style, eloquence, charm, poetry; it is a work for science;
and the scientific, serious German spirit, not carried away by this
and that intoxication of ear, and eye, and self-will, has peculiar
aptitudes for it.
We, on the other hand, do not necessarily gain by the commixture of
elements in us; we have seen how the clashing of natures in us
hampers and embarrasses our behaviour; we might very likely be more
attractive, we might very likely be more successful, if we were all
of a piece. Our want of sureness of taste, our eccentricity, come in
great measure, no doubt, from our not being all of a piece, from our
having no fixed, fatal, spiritual centre of gravity. The Rue de
Rivoli is one thing, and Nuremberg is another, and Stonehenge is
another; but we have a turn for all three, and lump them all up
together. Mr. Tom Taylor's translations from Breton poetry offer a
good example of this mixing; he has a genuine feeling for these
Celtic matters, and often, as in the Evil Tribute of Nomenoe, or in
Lord Nann and the Fairy, he is, both in movement and expression, true
and appropriate; but he has a sort of Teutonism and Latinism in him
too, and so he cannot forbear mixing with his Celtic strain such
disparates as:-
'Twas mirk, mirk night, and the water bright
Troubled and drumlie flowed -
which is evidently Lowland-Scotchy; or as:-
Foregad, but thou'rt an artful hand!
which is English-stagey; or as:-
To Gradlon's daughter, bright of blee,
Her lover he whispered tenderly -
BETHINK THEE, SWEET DAHUT! THE KEY!
which is Anacreontic in the manner of Tom Moore.
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