Shrieked the maiden:—“Never, sure!”
By the Author of “Flemish Interiors.”
——:o:——
“The Raven” has been repeatedly translated. A Latin version, by Lewis Gidley, was published in Exeter in 1863, and again in 1866 by Parker of Oxford and London. There are several German versions of it, also a French translation by William Hughes. But perhaps the most famous of all is the grand folio published in Paris in 1875, entitled “Le Corbeau, traduction française de Stéphane Mallarmé, avec Illustrations par Edouard Manet.” The translation is literal, and naturally loses much of the force and beauty of the original from the absence of rhyme. It lacks also much of the weird suggestiveness of “The Raven,” whilst the refrain “Jamais-plus” is but a poor substitute for the sonorous “Nevermore!” Manet, the late chief of the Impressionist School of Painters, has here given full vent to his powers, and his eccentricity. In some of his illustrations the effects of light and shade are marvellous, in others he has been less successful, whilst in one or two instances the illustrations appear absolutely meaningless.
Notes and Queries recently quoted an anecdote of a Raven which must have been an ancestor of Poe’s sinister bird. It is taken from a rare little book, to which it gives the subject of 166 pages of edifying preachment, and of course is firmly believed in by the author. The following is the title:—
“Vox Corvi; or the Voice of a Raven, that Thrice spoke these words distinctly: Look into Colossians the 3rd and 15th. The Text it self looked into, and opened, in a Sermon, Preached at Wigmore, in the County of Hereford, To which is added, Serious Addresses to the People of this Kingdom; shewing the use we ought to make of this Voice from Heaven. By Alex. Ologie, Minister of Wigmore, &c. Licensed according to order. Matth. 21, xviii. London, 1694.”
The details are thus circumstantially related:—
“On the 3d. of February, 1691, about Three in the Afternoon, this Reverend Divine, a person of the venerable Age of 80 years, and 40 of those a Laborious Teacher of God’s Word, in the Parish of Wigmore, in the County of Hereford, being in the Hall of his own house, being with the Pious Matron, his Wife, some Neighbours and Relations, together with two small Grand-Children of his, in all to the number of Eight Persons; Thomas Kinnersley, one of the said Grand-Children, of but Ten Years of Age, starting up from the Fireside, went out of the Hall-Door, and sate himself down upon a Block by a Wood-pile, before the Door, employing himself in no other Childlike Exercise than cutting of a Stick, when in less than half a quarter of an Hour, he returned into the Hall in great amazement, his Countenance pale, and affrighted, and said to his Grandfather and Grandmother, Look in the Third of the Colossians, and the Fifteenth, with infinite Passion and Earnestness, repeating the words no less than three Times, which Deportment and Speech much surprising the whole Company, they asked him what he meant by those words, who answered with great Ardency of Spirit, that a Raven had spoken them Three times from the Peak of the Steeple, and that it looked towards W. W.’s House, and shook its Head and Wings thitherwards, directing its Looks and Motions still towards that House. All which words he heard the Raven distinctly utter three times, and then saw it mount and fly out of sight. His Grandfather hereupon, taking the Bible, and turning to the said Text, found these words. ‘And let the Peace of God rule in your Hearts, to the which you are also called in one Body; and be ye thankful.’ Upon reading whereof, the Child was fully satisfied, and his countenance perfectly composed agen [sic].”
POE-TICAL FORGERIES.