So the stranger ate a dinner in the hermit's
cell, and, the same evening, resumed his
travels. Had he grown weary of the woods?—
We met him, ten days afterwards, in London.

ADVENTURES OF A TRANSLATION.

MOST English people acquainted with
modern German literature have heard of Bettina
Brentano, (Frau von Arnim,) a name familiarly
known in Germany, through her publication
of "Goëthe's Correspondence with a
Child." In 1835, in Berlin, this singular
production of a most enthuastic imagination
issued from the press. The idolised Poet had
been pleased to say, that every line of Bettina's
letters contained materials for a poem; he
had read them daily; and, as every thing that
threw light, or promised to throw light, on
aught appertaining or relating to Goëthe was
zealously sought for and cherished by his
countrymen, this work was eagerly caught at,
and universally read throughout Germany.

It is not our intention to comment on the
publication. Many of our readers may have
read it in the original; but it may be
interesting to them to know how it fared with
Bettina's earnest desire of appearing before
the British public, as she had the three
volumes translated in 1838, printed off seven
thousand copies forthwith in Berlin, at a cost
of seven hundred pounds, and dispatched
them to England, buoyed with the hope of
a cordial welcome on British ground. The
adventures of the work may not also be
devoid of general interest, as in them we have
another proof of how hard our international
restrictions tell upon individuals. To get the
work translated at all, Bettina had battled
with difficulties against which only a will
strong as her own, and her peculiarly
sanguine temperament, could have held out;
but no English person could she find willing
to undertake the third volume of her "Diary."
Still bent, however, on carrying out her
object, she continued the translation herself,
with no further knowledge of our language
than what she had acquired by comparing
her German manuscript with the achievements
of her translators, with which she
appears to have been anything but satisfied.
To give any idea of the difficulties of such an
undertaking, we must be allowed, presently,
to quote what the authoress herself says in
her preface, or Preamble, as she terms it, and
let a few extracts from the " Diary " bear
witness to her numerous perplexities.

After much trouble, and great expense, the
work was dispatched to England. The British
authorities honoured its arrival by demanding
a high import duty on the seven thousand
copies, bearing no certificate of being printed
in Prussia. After lengthy correspondence to
and fro, they were sent back with fifty pounds
cost of freight and warehousing. The Prussian
custom-house, in its turn, demanded a high
import duty, which is nowise to be shirked.

The catastrophe of these terrible adventures
was, that when the packages are opened, their
contents are found to be utterly spoilt; which
could hardly be otherwise, as the cases were
not calculated for twelve years' sojourn in the
damp of our London docks. Worst of all,
while mildew and custom-house authorities
were doing their worst upon poor Bettina's
literary venture, her book was pirated in
America, and very coolly turned into cash for
the enrichment of the pirates.

Bettina begins her third volume with an
apostrophe to " The English Bards." "Gentlemen!"
She writes, " The noble cup of your
mellifluous tongue, so often brimmed with
immortality, here filled with odd, but pure and
fiery draught, do not refuse to taste, if you
relish its spirit to be homefelt, though not
homeborn." And in her " preamble " she says,
"I was not acquainted with the English
tongue, therefore relied on the consciousness
of my translators. The recapitulating of
their version I tried to follow, with comparing
it to the German text. Often my ear was
hurt by words lack of musical rhythm, that
in the German text, by their harmonious
sounds, and even by the union of their single
parts, awake poetic sensation; I must yield to
have them supplied by such as want all lofty
strain. To all my objections, my relentless
translator opposed the impossibility of
translating it, the rigour against any arbitrariness
in that language, and, besides, its penury, that
allows no great choice, it consisting but in
thirty thousand words. I thought, if I only
did know them, to be sure I would find the
right."

Whether Bettina always found the right
words, or whether they were such as are
calculated to awaken " poetic sensation"—what
in short the exactions of the Custom House
have lost to the British public—a few specimens
of Miss Von Arnim's English will show.

Speaking of her qualifications as a translator,
and of the difficulties of the task, she
writes:–––

"Unconsciously, I pursued my task, confiding
in my genius, that would preserve me
from doing any harm by unfit, or even unusual
expressions, and persisted often in my wrong
way, when my advisers would have subverted
my construction, as they were absurdities.
Often my version, larded with uncommon
expressions, gave way to misunderstanding;
then I could not ally the correction with my
meaning, and would not be disputed out of
my wits, impassioned as I was for my traced-
out-turn, for which I had rummaged dictionary
and poetry, and never would yield till the last
sheet, which to-day will come in the press;
and I am like one to whom, after a long
prison, spring is bestowed in the free air.
Forsooth, I saw in the last year no roses,—no
tree blowing. My intelligence lay narrowly
grated up in the dictionary of good Johnson,
and the grammars that I took to my couch,
and fell asleep on them; and had also a very