During Borrow's last month or two in St. Petersburg he printed two thin octavo volumes of translations—some of them verses which, undeterred by the disheartening reception of earlier efforts, he had continued to make from each language in succession that he had the happiness to acquire, although most of the poems are from his old portfolios. These little books were named Targum and The Talisman. Dr. Knapp calls the latter an appendix to the former. They are absolutely separate volumes of verse, and I reproduce their title-pages from the only copies that Borrow seems to have reserved for himself out of the hundred printed of each. The publishers, it will be seen, are the German firm that printed the Manchu New Testament, Schultz and Beneze. Borrow's preface to Targum is dated 'St. Petersburg, June 1, 1835.' Here in Targum we find the trial poem which in competition with a rival candidate had won him the privilege of going to Russia for the Bible Society—The Mountain Chase. Here also among new verses are some from the Arabic, the Persian, and the Turkish. If it be true, as his friend Hasfeld said, that here was a poet who was able to render another without robbing the garland of a single leaf—that would but prove that the poetry which Borrow rendered was not of the first order. Nor, taking another standard—the capacity to render the ballad with a force that captures 'the common people,'—can we agree with William Bodham Donne, who was delighted with Targum and said that 'the language and rhythm are vastly superior to Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome.' In The Talisman we have four little poems from the Russian of Pushkin followed by another poem, The Mermaid, by the same author. Three other poems in Russian and Polish complete the booklet. Borrow left behind him in St. Petersburg with his friend, Hasfeld, a presentation copy for Pushkin, who, when he received it, expressed regret that he had not met his translator while Borrow was in St. Petersburg.
Title Page from "Targum"
Title Page from "The Talisman"
FOOTNOTES:
[103] Darlow, Letters to the Bible Society, p. 32.
[104] Ibid. p. 47.
[105] Darlow, Letters to the Bible Society, pp. 60, 61.