"the ovidian elegiac metre described and exemplified. .
"In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back."
What was our surprise and mortification, when, some years afterwards, we found that, in both instances, these lines had been copied verbatim from Schiller. We confess we even felt somewhat indignant at the imposition that had been played off upon us; and besides, we thought it very shameful that Schiller should have been defrauded of his own property, and of his own proper honours. As a translation, Coleridge's verses are certainly very admirable, because, tallying almost word for word with the original, they preserve exactly the effect which it produces: but that is no justification of his concealment. Perhaps he thought that he had improved so much upon the original that he was entitled to claim the verses as his own. But this we deny;—his lines on the Homeric metre are not quite so good as Schiller's; his lines on the Ovidian distich are as good, (with the exception of the word "silvery," which is inferior to "flüssige,") but not one whit better than Schiller's. But that German readers may judge of this for themselves, we subjoin the original verses[1] Coleridge's translation may be seen in his own Works, vol. ii. p. 146, Ed. 1836.
We first read the following verses in the Quarterly Review, vol. ii. p 26; they are now embodied in Coleridge's Works, vol. ii. p. 131, Ed. 1836.
"to a cataract.
"Unperishing youth!
Thou leapest from forth
The cell of thy hidden nativity!
Never mortal saw
The cradle of the strong one;
Never mortal heard
The gathering of his voices—
The deep-murmur'd charm of the son of the rock,
Which is lisp'd evermore at his slumber-less fountain.
There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil
At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing:
It embosoms the roses of dawn;
It entangles the shafts of the noon;
And into the bed of its stillness
The moonshine sinks down as in slumber—
That the sun of the rock—that the nursling of heaven
May be born in a holy twilight."
The Quarterly Review informs us that Mr Coleridge recited these lines "as a specimen of lyric rhythm, which he thought might satisfy the ear without rhyme;"—and he certainly establishes his point—nothing can be more exquisite than the versification here presented to us, and the ideas, too, are good; but we are under the necessity of adding this qualification—alas! he establishes his point, only by closely adopting the metre, the language. and the thoughts of another man. He is but the shadow—a glorified shadow, perhaps—but here is the substance from which it is thrown, presented before us in the person of Count Stolberg. This coincidence was pointed out to us by a friend some time ago. We thus translate, word for word, the
- ↑ Der epische Hexameter:—
"Schwindelnd trägt er dich fort auf rastlos strömenden Wogen:
Hinter dir siehst du, du siehst vor dir nur Himmel und Meer."
Das Distichon—
"Im Hexameter steigt des Spring-quells flüssige Säule:
Im Pentameter drauf fällt sie melodisch herab."
— Shiller's Werke, Vol. I., p. 262. Ed: Stuttgart und Tubingen: 1827.
Let the classical reader take up Ovid's Heroides or Tristia, and he will find in every page illustrations of the manner in which the hexameter breaks, as it were, and falls back in the pentameter—thereby adding a most exquisite grace to the rhythm. The secret genius of the metre appears to consist in this play. Here are one or two instances taken from Penelope's Letter to Ulysses:—
"Troja jacet certe, Danais invisa puellis.
Vix Priamus tanti totaque Troja fult."
Again—
"Quando ego non timui graviora pericula veris?
Res est solliciti plena timorie amor.
Again—
"Sive quis Antilochum narrabat ab Hectore victum
Antilochus nostri causa timoris erat."
