This account, true enough in itself though not stating the whole case as we now know, is doubtless the reason why less attention has been given to Mr. Stanley's translation and its priority to others. Apart from this, the preface shows the characteristic attitude of many Englishmen toward the new romanticism. Mr. Stanley felt he must apologize for such extravagance, as he does in his second paragraph:
The German author, conscious, perhaps, of the latitude he gives his imagination, was willing to shield himself under that liberty which poets are allowed the privilege of possessing: for the parody of the words
And these are of them'—
which is[1] placed as a motto to the title-page, is to be found in a preface to a collection of his works, published by him in his own country:—Was[2] it not for these bubbles, which nature, in her lavish mode, sometimes permits to issue from the mind, poetry would be deprived of many of her most beautiful productions.
Again, Mr. Stanley frankly admits that he has altered the poem, as "translated freely" of the title-page implies. He says:
The Poem will be found, in many respects, to have been altered from the original; but more particularly towards the conclusion, where the translator, thinking the moral not sufficiently explained, has added several lines. The German poem concludes with a stanza, the literal meaning of which may be given in the following words:
Link'd hand in hand, the spirits fly;
And as they dance, in howling sound,
Have patience! patience! loud they cry.
Though rack'd with sorrow, be resign'd,
And not with God in Heaven contend:
May God unto thy soul be kind,
Thy earthly course is at an end.
To his translation of this last stanza, free enough in itself, Mr. Stanley added one of his own as follows:
Who trust his love for kind relief,
Ally their hearts to his:
When man will bear, and be resign'd,
God ever soothes his suffering mind,
And grants him future bliss.
It was thus that he thought to explain and strengthen for his countrymen the didacticism of the poem.[3]
