Her writings in prose must not be overlooked. Among them is a novel entitled Sigea, founded on the adventures of Camoens ; another entitled Jorilla, a beautiful story, full of pictures of rural life in Estremadura, which deserves, if it could find a competent translator, to be transferred to our language. Besides these there are two other novels from her pen, Paquita and La Luz del Tejo. A few years since appeared, in a Madrid periodical, the Semanario, a series of letters written by her, giving an account of the impressions received in a journey from the Tagus to the Rhine, including a visit to England. Among the subjects on which she has written, is the idea, still warmly cherished in Spain, of uniting the entire peninsula under one government. In an ably conducted journal of Madrid, she has given accounts of the poetesses of Spain, her contemporaries, with extracts from their writings, and a kindly estimate of their respective merits. Her biographer speaks of her activity and efficiency in charitable enterprises, her interest in the cause of education, her visits to the primary schools of Madrid, encouraging and rewarding the pupils, and her patronage of the escuela de parvulos, or infant school, at Badajoz, established by a society in that city, with the design of improving the education of the labouring class. It must have been not long after the publication of her poems, in 1852, that Carolina Coronado became the wife of an American gentleman, Mr. Horatio J. Perry, at one time our Secretary of Legation at the Court of Madrid, afterwards our chargé d'affaires, and now, in 1863, again Secretary of Legation. Amidst the duties of a wife and mother, which she fulfils with exemplary fidelity and grace, she has not either forgotten or forsaken the literary pursuits which have given her so high a reputation. PAGE 245 THE RUINS OF ITALICA The poems of the Spanish author, Francisco de Rioja, who lived in the first half of the seventeenth century, are few in number, but much esteemed. His ode on the Ruins of Italica is one of the most admired of these, but in the only collection of his poems which I have seen, it is said that the concluding stanza, in the original copy, was deemed so little worthy of the rest that it was purposely omitted in the publication. Italica was a city founded by the Romans in the south of Spain, the remains of which are still an object of interest. PAGE 256 SELLA Sella is the name given by the Vulgate to one of the wives of Lamech, mentioned in the fourth chapter of the Book of Genesis, and called Zillah in the common English Version of the Bible. PAGE 270 HOMER'S ODYSSEY, BOOK V, TRANSLATED It may be esteemed presumptuous in the author of this volume to attempt a translation of any part of Homer in blank verse after that of Cowper. It has always seemed to him, however, that Cowper's version had very great defects. The style of Homer is simple, and he has been praised for fire and rapidity of narrative. Does anybody find these qualities in Cowper's Homer? If Cowper had rendered him into such English as he employed in his ' Task, there would be no reason to complain; but in translating Homer he seems to have thought it necessary to use a different style from that of his original works. Almost every sentence is stiffened by some clumsy inversion; stately phrases are used when simpler ones were at hand, and would have rendered the meaning of the original better. The entire version has the appearance of being hammered out with great labour, and as a whole it is cold and constrained; scarce anything seems spontaneous; it is only now and then that the translator has caught the fervour of his author. Homer, of course, wrote in idiomatic Greek, and, in order to produce either a true copy of the original or an agreeable poem, should have been translated into idiomatic English. I am almost ashamed, after this censure of an author, whom, in the main, I admire so much as I do Cowper, to refer to my own translation of the Fifth Book of the Odyssey. I desire barely to say that I have endeavoured to give the verses of the old Greek poet at least a simpler presentation in English, and one more conformable to the genius of our language. PAGE 304 The mock-grape's blood-red banner, &o. Ampelopsis. 'mock-grape'. I have here literally translated the botanical name of the Virginia creeper-an appellation too cumbrous for verse. PAGE 312 A BRIGHTER DAY This poem was written shortly after the author's return from a visit to Spain, and more than a twelvemonth before the overthrow of the tyrannical government of Queen Isabella and the expulsion of the Bourbons. It is not from the Spanish' in the ordinary sense of the phrase, but is an attempt to put into a poetic form sentiments and hopes which the author frequently heard, during his visit to Spain, from the lips of the natives. We are yet to see whether these expectations of an enlightened government and national liberty are to become a reality under the new order of things. INDEX OF TITLES African Chief, The, 90. After a Tempest, 55. Alcayde of Molina, The, 133. Antiquity of Freedom, The, Apennines, To the, 148. Arctic Lover, The, 123. Battle-field, The, 170. 'Blessed are they that mourn', 25. Boethius, From, 321. Castles in the Air, 306. Centennial Hymn, The, 347. 146. Child's Funeral, The, 168. Cole, the Painter, departing for Conjunction of Jupiter and Conqueror's Grave, The, 207. Count of Greiers, The, 140. Damsel of Peru, The, 88. Earth's Children cleave to Evening Reverie, An, 182. Fatima and Raduan, 129. Firmament, The, 75. Flood of Years, The, 337. Fountain, The, 173. Fringed Gentian, To the, 116. German, Translations from the, Gladness of Nature, The, 94. Greek Partisan, The, 96. 'He hath put all things under 'His tender mercies are over all Hudson, A Scene on the Banks of the, 104. Hunter of the Prairies, The, 154. 'I broke the spell that held me 'I cannot forget', 76. In Memory of John Lothrop In Memory of William Leggett, Indian at the Burial-place of his Indian Girl's Lament, The, 33. 'Innocent child and snow-white Inscription for the Entrance to Invitation to the Country, An, Italy, 241: Journey of Life, A, 125. Knight's Epitaph, The, 152. La Fontaine, From, 131. Land of Dreams, The, 202. Leggett, William, In Memory of, INDEX OF TITLES Snow-Shower, The, 212. 365 Song for New Year's Eve, A, Song (Dost thou idly ask to Song, from the Spanish of Song of Marion's Men, 122. Song of the Greek Amazon, 59. Songs of the Stars, 66. Spring in Town, 92. Stanzas from Goethe, 297. |