"T was partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see
The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin-pride. And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.

NOTES.

Vision of Beauty, dear Undine. - Page 9.

6

THIS name is pronounced Oondee'na in German, but the common English pronunciation, Undeen,' seems to be more in accordance with our mode of speaking such names as Emmeline, Geraldine, Iarine, Rosaline, &c.; that is, Emmeleen, Geraldeen, Eeareen, Rosaleen.

Masses of vapor coursed over the moon with the swiftness of thought.—

Page 25.

Some of these images may remind the reader of the vivid pictures of the BUCCANEER, that rich contribution to our permanent literature :

"The scud is driving wildly overhead."
"The seas run high;

Their white tops, flashing thro' the night,

Give to the eager, straining eye,

A wild and shifting light.'

We do not remember any poem of this class, since the appearance of the ANCIENT MARINER, that has discovered such powers of imagination, the union of such sweetness and terrible energy, as this tradition of the olden time. We have had here, on this side the water, many of the gentler breathings of Nature, but, in the strong delineation of passion, we know not what America has produced to be well compared with the Buccaneer.

Is this trumpet-note of crime, and the doom of crime, the last 'sound' we are to hear from the Pyrenees'? We hope not.

This intensive form of expression is almost as familiar in English as in German, and I have not scrupled occasionally to employ it. The following example, from THALABA, is one of the most impressive in the language:

"No sound but the wild, wild wind,

And the snow crunching under his feet."

These lines from the Ancient Mariner afford another example, and one still more remarkable :

"Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea.'

And - well, other things will settle themselves. - Page 30. "Undine evidently meant to have added another condition, but then thinking it superfluous, only remarks, —'well, other things will settle themselves.' C. F.

You are yourself the cause.—Page 32.

"That is, you act or speak in such a manner, as to make me treat you rudely. Why do you say such provoking, things?—It is a kind of tender reproof, in self-defence." C. F.

Noble monuments glimmer below. - Page 56.

No reader of English poetry need be reminded of Southey's admirable description of the submarine City of Baly in his CURSE OF KEHAMA. "In sunlight and sea-green,

The thousand palaces were seen

Of that proud city, whose superb abodes
Seemed reared by giants for the immortal gods.
How silent and how beautiful they stand,

Like things of nature."

Free lord of Kühleborn. - Page 61.

"Freiherr," baron. There is something peculiarly whimsical in this quiet humor of lord or baron Kühleborn."

Name-day.- Page 67.

A literary friend, from whose kindness I have derived the best aid in revising and correcting my version, informs me, that this term " refers to a German custom of celebrating, not only the birth-day, but also the name-day, that is, the day which in the almanac bears the person's Christian name. The old almanacs contained a name for each day in the year, being either the name of a saint, or some other remarkable personage in history."

The preceding note was written six years ago. The friend to whom I referred, is now with God. He perished in the appalling calamity of the steamboat Lexington, on the evening of January 13, 1840; and I cannot but allow myself the mournful indulgence of adding, that it was the late lamented CHARLES FOLLEN, LL.D., to whom the allusion was made. The words of Horace never seemed so natural as now: "Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam cari capitis?

-cui Pudor, et Justitiæ soror
Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas,

Quando ullum inveniet parem?

Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit.'

Shall we not weep? Shall tenderness e'er die
For one so dear?

O when shall modest Genius, spotless Faith,
Sister of Justice, guileless Truth, e'er look
Upon his like again? All, all the good
Bewail his fate in tears.

With every friend of literature, religion, and human happiness, we are impatient to receive the promised MEMOIR and REMAINS of one so truly christian, - one so exalted in wealth and power of intellect, so childlike in spirit, so holy in heart and life.

Morning so bright. - Page 69.

In reading some of the verses of Fouquè, we cannot but remember the question of Hamlet to the player, Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? As one example, among many, we may take the original of his miniature picture here:

These four little lines, descriptive of the scene of Undine's song, simple as they are, cost me more trouble in trying to mould them into a fit English form, than I well like to acknowledge. I made several attempts, without much success, to translate them to my mind. Among these versions, the following had the merit of not being the worst:

The morning beams in glory,
Where wild-flowers gaily bloom,
Where dewy grass is waving
The lake's fresh marge along;'

but after all, the more verbal rendering, as it now stands, seemed to be preferable.

The familiar and affectionate terms. - Page 76.

The words of the original are, "nur nenne mich wieder Du," 'only do call me THOU again. The use of the personal pronouns, thou and thee, so familiar and endearing in the German idiom, gives an entirely different impression in English. In the conversations of this tale, examples of this peculiarity occur on almost every page. The translator has of course avoided a mode of expression, which most of his readers would feel to be stiff, strange, and unsuitable.

A laugh of mockery and contempt came pealing up from the depth of the river.- Page 97.

This fine passage of Fouquè bears a strong resemblance to a finer one in Southey's THALABA, Book V.

"And he drew off Abdaldar's ring,

And cast it in the gulf.

A skinny hand came up,
And caught it as it fell,

And peals of devilish laughter shook the cave."

The reader, if he take any interest in the coincidences of genius, may like to compare with these passages, the following verse from king Arthur's death.in PERCY'S RELIQUES:

"A hande and an arme did meet the sworde,

And flourish'd three times in the air;

Then sunke benethe the renninge streme,

And of the duke was seene noe mair.

Only little waves were yet whispering and sobbing around the boat.-Page 98. The original of this clause is, "nur flüsterten noch kleine Wellchen schluchzend um den Kahn." If the translator may be allowed to express his admiration, without being considered intrusive, he would say that nothing could have been more exquisitely conceived than this circumstance. Its tenderness seems to have touched the heart of a lover of the beautiful and true, who has just favored us, in his 'YEAR's Life,' with so much of fine feeling and poetical experience :

"Or weep, unmindful if my tears be seen,
For the meek, suffering love of poor Undine."
The bridegroom. - Page 101.

The betrothed, are called bride and bridegroom in Germany.
Earliest moment of dawn.- Page 103.

"Post mediam noctem visus, quum somnia vera.' "-HORAT.

No great murder in such trifles. - Page 105.

"Denn er denkt gewiss blutwenig an alle diese Dinge." For he surely thinks very little of all these things.' The temptation to render

this odd idiom, blutwenig, by some equivalent phrase in English, was a whim too strong to be resisted.

A thrill both of bliss and agony. - Page 110.

The expression of the original is, "lieblichen Wehe," a blissful agony' or 'pang.' This union of opposite qualities, however bold the conception producing it, and however suited to express the death-pang under such circumstances, forms a curious felicity, rather too violent to be often admitted in English. Phrases of this kind are more familiar in German.

Groschen. Thaler. Ducat. - Page 124.

"A Saxon groschen is about 3 cents (2 cents, 9 mills;) a thaler, (an imaginary coin) 72 cents (71 cents, 8 mills ;) a ducat, 2 dollars 20 cents, (2 dollars, 19 cents, 4 mills,) American money."

Waters-feeling of sympathy.— Page 142.

This sympathy of Nature with man, may remind the reader of the fine imaginative feeling of Bryant in the opening of his THANATOPSIS. Speaking of Nature, and of one who "holds communion with her visible forms," the poet observes, that to such an one,

I was not a little gratified, three years after my Table-Talk Notices of these "dreams of faery were written, to meet with the deserved praise of this unique story in the London Quarterly Review; and I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting the passage in this place. "Phantasmion' is not a poem; but it is poetry from beginning to end, and has many poems within it. It is one of a race that has particularly suffered under the assaults of political economy and useful knowledge; -a fairy tale, -the last, we suppose, that will ever be written in England, and unique in its kind. It is neither German nor French. It is what it is pure as a crystal in diction, tinted like an opal with the hues of an ever-springing sunlit fancy."

"Sie rann und sucht'ihr Glück."- UNDINE.

High-priests of Nature. - Page 182.

This, of course, was written prior to the death of Coleridge,—many years before he was admitted to visions of the universe, to which the views of earth, views even glorious as this, are dim as the earliest dawn.

"Queen of Western Isles." - Page 187.

From Park Benjamin's beautiful lines, written in that "fair Elysian isle," Barbadoes.

By the way, when are we to welcome this writer's Sibylline Leaves in a collected form? There are many who feel his spirit, the easy flow of his verse, as well as his fine touches of nature,-many, who have been long waiting to see, not only these compositions gathered from the four winds, but others of greater extent, whether narrative or dramatic, permitted to come forth from their Delphic recesses.