Here he has been streaming through Eastern Europe and Western Asia, so hilarious and good-tempered all the time, so intensely wide-awake, so perfectly at home everywhere, so quick at making friends, so perfectly convinced that the world was made for American travellers, and so apt at proving it by his own example, that his friends who missed him for a while not only were not astonished to find that he had been a Surgeon in the Ottoman Army, during this brief interval, but only wondered he had not been Grand Vizier.

In this instance the book is the man, if we may so far change Monsieur de Buffon's saying. It is full of fresh observations and lively descriptions,—perhaps a little too overlarded and oversprigged with prose and verse quotations,—but as lively as a golden carp just landed. It describes scenes not familiar to most readers, tells stories they have never heard, introduces them to new costumes and faces, and helps itself by the aid of pictures to make its vivacious narrative real. We are much pleased to learn that the work has met with a very good reception; for we consider it as the card of introduction of a gentleman whom the American people will very probably know pretty well before he has done with them, and be the better for the acquaintance.

* * * * *

Dante's Hell. Cantos I. to X. A Literal Metrical Translation. By J. C. Peabody. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857.

A man must be either conscious of poetic gifts and possessed of real learning, or very presumptuous and ignorant, who undertakes at the present day a new translation of Dante. Mr. J. C. Peabody might claim exemption from this dictum, on the ground that his translation is not a new one; but he himself does not put in this plea, and we cannot grant to him the possession of poetic power, or declare that he is not ignorant and presumptuous. He says in his Preface, with a modesty, the worth of which will soon become apparent, "The present is on a different plan from all other translations, and must be judged accordingly. While I disclaim all intention of disputing the palm as a poet or scholar with the least of those who have walked with Dante before me, yet, by such labor and plodding as their genius would not allow them to descend to, have I made a more literal, and perhaps, therefore, a better translation than they all." Mr. J. C. Peabody is right in supposing that none of the previous translations of Dante could descend to such labor and plodding as his. In 1849, Dr. Carlyle published his literal prose translation of the "Inferno." It was in many respects admirably done, and it has afforded great assistance to the students of the poet in their first progress. Mr. Peabody does not acknowledge any obligations to it, or refer to it in any way. Let us, however, compare a passage or two of the two versions. We open at line 78 of the First Canto. We do not divide Mr. Peabody's into the lines of verse.

CARLYLE.

"Art thou, then, that Virgil and that fountain which pours abroad so rich a stream of speech? I answered him with bashful front. O glory and light of other poets! May the long zeal avail me and the great love which made me search thy volume. Thou art my master and my author."

PEABODY.

"Art thou that Virgil and that fountain, then, which pours abroad so rich a stream of speech? With bashful forehead him I gave reply. O light and glory of the other bards! May the long zeal and the great love avail me that hath caused me thy volume to explore. Thou art my master, thou my author art."

Opening again at random, we take the two translations at the beginning of the Eighth Canto.