ds
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!

The year has been fertile in American verse. How much Poetry it
has produced is a question into which we do not care to enter. It
has witnessed the publication of two volumes by Mr. Bret Harte;
of one volume by Mr. John Hay; and of one volume by Mr. William
Winter. The title of Mr. Winter's volume, "My Witness," (J.R.
Osgood & Co.) is a happy one. It is not every American writer who
can afford to place his verse on the stand as his witness; and it
is not every American writer whose verse will substantiate what
he is so desirous of proving, viz., that he is an American poet.

Mr. Winter is not without faults--what American writer is?--but
he endeavors to write simply. The virtue of simplicity--always a
rare one, and never so rare as at present--he possesses. We have
Tennyson, who is not simple; we have Browning, who is not simple;
we have Swinburne, who is not simple; and we have Mr. Joaquin
Miller, who is not simple.

Mr. Winter's book has its defects--among which we observe an
occasional lapse into Latinity--but with all its defects it is a
very _poetical_ book. Mr. Winter reminds us, more than any recent
American poet, of the English poets of the reigns of Charles the
First and Second. He has, at his best, all their graces of style,
and he has, at all times, the grace of Purity, to which they laid
no claim. With the exception of Carew (whom, we dare say, he has
never read), Mr. Win