o the
flowers," etc. But this may appear finical to Mr. Brooks. We certainly
do not press it critically against his great and general success. Such a
paragraph as, for instance, the closing one upon page 340 of Vol. II. is
very trying to the resources of the translator. Here Mr. Brooks has
sacrificed to literalness an opportunity to sort the confused clauses
and stop their jostling: this may be done without diluting the
sentiment, and is within the translator's liberty.

It always seemed to us that the finest part of "Hesperus," and one of
the finest passages of German literature, is contained in the Ninth
Dog-Post-Day and some pages of the Tenth. The Ninth, in particular,
which is a perfect idyl, describes Victor's walk to Kussewitz: all the
landscape is made to share and symbolize his rapture: the people in the
fields, the framework of an unfinished house, the two-wheeled hut of the
shepherd, are not only well painted, but turned most naturally to the
help of interpreting his feeling. The chapter has also a direct and
unembarrassed movement, which is rare in this romance. And it is
beautifully translated.

The reader must understand that Victor is called by various names; so
that, if he merely dips into the book, as we suspect he will until his
sympathy is enlisted by some fine thought, his ignorance will increase
the frantic and dishevelled state of the story. Victor is Horion,
Sebastian, and Bastian; a susceptible youth, profoundly affected by the
presence of noble or handsome women, and brought into situations that
test his delicacy. He smuggles a declaration of love into a watch which
he sells, in the disguise of an Italian merchant, to the Princess
Agnola, on occasion of her first reception at the court of her husband.
He is ashamed of this after he begins to know Clotilde, who is one of
Jean Paul's pure and noble women; and he is at one time full of dread
lest the Princess had read his watch-paper, and at another full of pique
at the suspicion that she had not. Being court-physician and oculist, he
has frequent opportunities to visit Agnola, and there is one rather
florid occasion which the midnight cry of the street-watch man
interrupts. But all this time, the inflammable Victor was indulging a
kind of tenderness for Joachime, maid-of-honor and attractive female. As
the love for Clotilde deepens, he must destroy these partialities for
Agnola and Joachime. This is no easy matter; what with the watch-paper
and