ardent soul by the hammer-stroke of circumstance,—are generally excellent and sometimes exceedingly happy. The following are characteristic examples both of the manner of the original and of the translator's method:
Soleares.
The eyes of my dark beauty
Are like the wounds I bear.
Great as my desolation,
[And] black as my despair.
Yestereven.
The dead-cart passed me by;
A band hung out uncovered,
I knew her again thereby.
I look from the iron-barred casement,
But nought to see is there
Save dust and sand in the sunshine,
Stirred by the languid air.
The extraordinary affinity in style and train of thought of the above and many of the Spanish pieces in the book to Heine's lyrical vein (or rather one phase of it), will at once strike the reader, showing how deeply the poet of the Romanzero and the Book of Lazarus was imbued with that folk-song feeling which is the essence of all great songwork.
Miss Strettell is scarcely so successful in the longer Jitano pieces. "Leave me, memory of sorrow," &c. for instance (p. 58), is hardly a happy rendering of the exquisite Petenera, "Dejame, memoria triste." In the Italian translations the contrary is the case; the Rispetti are generally much more felicitously Englished than the shorter and wilder Stornelli, the sudden flower-like charm of which Miss Strettell does not quite succeed in preserving. It would, by the way, be interesting to compare her versions of the latter with the French prose translation of Caselli (Dr. Henry Cazalis). A prominent and interesting feature of Miss Strettell's book is the illustrations, consisting in twelve photogravures after drawings by Messrs. Sargent, Morelli, Abbey and Padgett.
