| Description | The translation from Schiller ['Der Spaziergang'] was forwarded to him from Sheen, and he was glad to get it. It is all he can know of the poem, as he is ignorant of the language. He can appreciate it in Herschel's verses, in the same spirit as in 'The Piccolomini', from which he quotes. He notes how fortunate [Friedrich von] Schiller was in being translated by [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge, without knowing the original, in the manner of a great portrait painted without having seen the person portrayed. It does not seem to have been a waste of Coleridge's powers and he wishes that men of genius would occupy themselves in translating as well as in production, especially when their powers of diction and expression are superior to their powers of thought. He believes that the most admirable of [Percy Bysshe] Shelley's work is his translation of the Mayday night scene in 'Faust'. |