The case of half a million of men, flushed by victory, and led by able and experienced leaders assailing a single state, is the exception, not the rule.
Circumstances, therefore, of paramount importance and irresistible force, compelled Marlborough to fix the war in Flanders, and convert it into one of sieges and blockades. In entering upon such a system of hostility, sure, and comparatively free from risk, but slow and extremely costly, the alliance ran the greatest risk of being shipwrecked on the numerous discords, jealousies, and separate interests, which, in almost every instance recorded in history, have proved fatal to a great confederacy, if it does not obtain decisive success at the outset, before these seeds of division have had time to come to maturity. With what admirable skill and incomparable address Marlborough kept together the unwieldy alliance will hereafter appear. Never was a man so qualified by nature for such a task. He was courtesy and grace personified. It was a common saying at the time, that neither man nor woman could resist him. "Of all the men I ever knew," says no common man, himself a perfect master of the elegances he so much admired, "the late Duke of Marlborough possessed the graces in the highest degree, not to say engrossed them. Indeed he got the most by them, and contrary to the custom of profound historians, who always assign deep causes for great events, I ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough's greatness to those graces. He had no brightness, nothing shining in his genius. He had most undoubtedly an excellent plain understanding, and sound judgment. But these qualities alone would probably have never raised him higher than they found him, which was page to James the Second's queen. But there the grace protected and promoted him. His figure was beautiful, but his manner was irresistible, either by man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner, that he was enabled, during all his war, to connect the various and jarring powers of the Grand Alliance, and to carry them on to the main object of the war, notwithstanding their private and separate views, jealousies, and wrongheadedness. Whatever court he went to (and he was often obliged to go to restive and refractory ones) he brought them into his measures. The pensionary Heinsius, who had governed the United Provinces for forty years, was absolutely governed by him. He was always cool, and nobody ever observed the least variation in his countenance; he could refuse more gracefully than others could grant, and those who went from him the most dissatisfied as to the substance of their business, were yet charmed by his manner, and, as it were, comforted by it."18
PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET
No. II
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL RUSSIAN, BY THOMAS B. SHAW, B.A. OF CAMBRIDGE, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE IMPERIAL ALEXANDER LYCEUM, TRANSLATOR OF "THE HERETIC,"&C. &C.
In offering to the public the following specimens of Púshkin's poetry in an English dress, the translator considers it part of his duty to make a few remarks. The number and extent of these observations, he will, of course, confine within the narrowest limits consistent with his important duty of making his countrymen acquainted with the style and character of Russia's greatest poet; a duty which he would certainly betray, were he to omit to explain the chief points indispensable for the true understanding, not only of the extracts which he has selected as a sample of his author's productions, but of the general tone and character of those productions, viewed as a whole.
The translator wishes it therefore to be distinctly understood that he by no means intends to offer, in the character of a complete poetical portrait, the few pieces contained in these pages, but rather as an attempt, however imperfect, to daguerreotype – by means of the most faithful translation consistent with ease —one of the various expressions of Púshkin's literary physiognomy; to represent one phase of his developement.
That physiognomy is a very flexible and a varying one; Púshkin (considered only as a poet) must be allowed to have attained very high eminence in various walks of his sublime art; his works are very numerous, and as diverse in their form as in their spirit; he is sometimes a romantic, sometimes a legendary, sometimes an epic, sometimes a satiric, and sometimes a dramatic poet; – in most, if not in all, of these various lines he has attained the highest eminence as yet recognised by his countrymen; and, consequently, whatever impression may be made upon our readers by the present essay at a transfusion of his works into the English language, will be necessarily a very imperfect one. In the prosecution of the arduous but not unprofitable enterprise which the translator set before himself three years ago – viz. the communication to his countrymen of some true ideas of the scope and peculiar character of Russian literature – he met with so much discouragement in the unfavourable predictions of such of his friends as he consulted with respect to the feasibility of his project, that he may be excused for some degree of timidity in offering the results of his labours to an English public. So great, indeed, was that timidity, that not even the very flattering reception given to his two first attempts at prose translation, has entirely succeeded in destroying it; and he prefers, on the present occasion, to run the risk of giving only a partial and imperfect reflection of Púshkin's intellectual features, to the danger that might attend a more ambitious and elaborate version of any of the poet's longer works.
Púshkin is here presented solely in his lyrical character; and, it is trusted, that, in the selection of the compositions to be translated – selections made from a very large number of highly meritorious works – due attention has been paid not only to the intrinsic beauty and merit of the pieces chosen, but also to the important consideration which renders indispensable (in cases where we find an embarras de richesses, and where the merit is equal) the adoption of such specimens as would possess the greatest degree of novelty for an English reader.
The task of translating all Púshkin's poetry is certainly too dignified a one, not to excite our ambition; and it is meditated, in the event of the accompanying versions finding in England a degree of approbation sufficiently marked to indicate a desire for more specimens, to extend our present labours so far, as to admit passages of the most remarkable merit from Púshkin's longer works; and, perhaps, even complete versions of some of the more celebrated. Should, therefore, the British public give the fiat of its approbation, we would still further contribute to its knowledge of the great Russian author, by publishing, for example, some of the more remarkable places in the poem of "Evgénii Oniégin," the charming "Gypsies," scenes and passages from the tragedy of "Bóris Godunóff," the "Prisoner of the Caucasus," "Mazépa," &c. &c.
With respect to the present or lyrical specimens, we shall take the liberty to make a few remarks, having reference to the principles which have governed the translator in the execution of the versions; and we shall afterwards preface each poem with a few words of notice, such as may appear to be rendered necessary either by the subject or by the form of the composition itself.
Of the poetical merit of these translations, considered as English poems, their writer has no very exalted idea; of their faithfulness as versions, on the contrary, he has so deep a conviction, that he regrets exceedingly the fact, that the universal ignorance prevailing in England of the Russian language, will prevent the possibility of that important merit – strict fidelity – being tested by the British reader. Let the indulgent, therefore, remember, if we have in any case left an air of stiffness and constraint but too perceptible in our work, that this fault is to be considered as a sacrifice of grace at the altar of truth. It would have been not only possible, but easy, to have spun a collection of easy rhymes, bearing a general resemblance to the vigorous and passionate poetry of Púshkin; but this would not have been a translation, and a translation it was our object to produce. Bowring's Russian Anthology (not to speak of his other volumes of translated poetry) is a melancholy example of the danger of this attractive but fatal system; while the names of Cary, of Hay, and of Merivale, will remain as a bright encouragement to those who have sufficient strength of mind to prefer the "strait and narrow way" of masterly translation, to the "flowery paths of dalliance" so often trodden by the paraphraser.
In all cases, the metre of the original, the musical movement and modulation, has, as far as the translator's ear enabled him to judge, been followed with minute exactness, and at no inconsiderable expense, in some cases, of time and labour. It would be superfluous, therefore, to state, that the number of lines in the English version is always the same as in the original.