A good translation of any thing is perhaps an impossibility. But it must be confessed, that the attempt of the German foreigner is highly creditable to him, and, with a little amendment, would probably afford our countrymen as fair an idea of the original as they are ever likely to see. Certain it is, that Mr Naylor has not improved upon it.
If our readers think, that in the samples we have given of Mr Naylor's beauties, we have not sufficiently brought forward some of the more striking peculiarities of the Cockney school, we shall meet this complaint by presenting them with the subjoined anthology, the fragrance of which we think will satisfy their highest anticipations.
If any of our readers doubt the authenticity of some of the rhymes above set down, we are willing that they should buy the book, as we have done, and ascertain for themselves.
Merciful as we are by nature, and growing more and more so every day by age, we yet feel that the enormities we have now denounced are beyond endurance. Such poetry as this, neither gods, men, nor booksellers should tolerate; and with the highest respect for the very excellent publishers who have assisted in the birth of this production, and to whom we owe so many useful and admirable contributions to knowledge and literature, we do venture humbly to submit, that their peculiar duty makes them somewhat more responsible for what is thus brought forth, than ordinary obstetrical practitioners can be for what they may help into the world. There is no reason that such a bantling should be born at all, and at least we would recommend the continuance of gestation for nine times the Horatian period. Seriously speaking, we always regret to miss the general security which the title-page should give us, that in what we buy, we shall have something for our money. A bad or inferior book may, inadvertently, issue from the most respectable quarter. But when a work is ushered into the light with such pomp and pageantry of paper, printing, and getting up, as are here lavished, we hold that the public have a right to expect that it has received the imprimatur of some discerning judge, and to enforce the implied warranty that the inside, as well as the outside, is a merchantable commodity in the market of Parnassus.
But the publisher's part of it is the least of the evil. It is obvious that the natives of Cockneyland are forgetting themselves. A new generation has sprung up that do not remember the castigations bestowed on their fathers of yore, and which for a time kept them in tolerable subjection. A young Londoner, who happens to have enthusiasm, or industry, or information, on a particular subject, may deserve commendation for the laudable direction of his private studies; but is he, therefore, entitled to haspire to write, and not to write merely, but to write poetry, and to disfigure a venerable old poem under pretence of reproducing it? That is a different question, which needs to be seriously and decidedly dealt with. This is not the first time, within a brief period, that we have been compelled to make an example of similar delinquencies; and, as sure as the crutch is in yonder corner, it shall not be the last, if the nuisance be not speedily and completely abated.