in the history of English Poetry when translation has played an important part.  Such a period occurred just before the Shakspearean era, and it was noted for translations from the Latin poets.  Chapman was the first English writer to perceive the greatness of the Greek poets, and, like the poet that he was, he attempted to translate the father of poets, Homer.  Chapman’s Homer is a noble work, with all its faults; but it is not what Homer should be in English.  It was followed by other translations mostly of the Latin poets, the best, perhaps, being Dryden’s Virgil, until, finally, the English mind returned to Homer, or supposed it did, in the pretty, musical numbers of Pope.  Who will may read Pope’s Homer.  We cannot.  Nor Cowper’s either, although it contains some good, manly writing.  We can read Lord Derby’s Homer, or could, until Mr. Bryant published his translation of the “Iliad,” when the necessity no longer existed.  No English translation of Homer will compare with Mr. Bryant’s; and we are glad that we are soon to have the whole of the “Odyssey,” as we already have the whole of the “Iliad.”  The first volume of Mr. Bryant’s translation of the “Odyssey” (J.R.  Osgood & Co.) fully sustains the reputation of the writer.  It is so admirably done, that, if we did not know to the contrary, we should think we were reading an original poem.  The stiffness which generally inheres in translations is wanting; nowhere is there any sense of restraint, but everywhere a delightful sense of ease—­the freedom of one great poet shining through the freedom of another great poet, as the sun shines through the sky.  It is the ideal English translation of Homer; and we congratulate Mr. Bryant upon having finished it (for we believe he has); and congratulate ourselves that it is the work of an American poet.

We offer the like congratulation to Mr. Bayard Taylor for his translation of “Faust,” which occupies the same place, as regards German Poetry, that Mr. Bryant’s translation of Homer does to Greek Poetry.  The difficulty of the task which Mr. Taylor set himself, the task of rendering the original in the measures of the original, was never met before by any English translator of “Faust”—­never even attempted, we believe—­and, to say that he has accomplished it, is to say that Mr. Taylor is a very skilful poet—­how skilful we never knew before, highly as we have always valued his poetical powers.  He enables us to understand the Intention of Goethe in “Faust,” as no one besides himself has done; and, among the obligations that we owe him for the enjoyment he has given us, we must not forget the obligation we are under to him for his Notes.  They are scholarly, and to the point.  There is not one too many, not one which we could afford to lose, now that we have it.  What might have been written, under the pretense of Notes—­what another translator might not have been able to resist writing—­is fearful to think of—­Life is so short, and Goethe’s Art so long!