With golden comb so lustrous,
And thereby a song sings,
It has a tone so wondrous,
That powerful melody rings.

The shipper in the little ship
It effects with woe sad might;
He does not see the rocky slip,
He only regards dreaded height.

I believe the turbulent waves
Swallow the last shipper and boat;
She with her singing craves
All to visit her magic moat.

No translation could be closer.  He has got in all the facts; and in their regular order, too.  There is not a statistic wanting.  It is as succinct as an invoice.  That is what a translation ought to be; it should exactly reflect the thought of the original.  You can’t sing “Above wonderfully there,” because it simply won’t go to the tune, without damaging the singer; but it is a most clingingly exact translation of Dort OBEN WUNDERBAR—­fits it like a blister.  Mr. Garnham’s reproduction has other merits—­a hundred of them—­but it is not necessary to point them out.  They will be detected.

No one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it.  Even Garnham has a rival.  Mr. X had a small pamphlet with him which he had bought while on a visit to Munich.  It was entitled A catalogue of pictures in the old PINACOTEK, and was written in a peculiar kind of English.  Here are a few extracts: 

“It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to a publication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition of it.”

“An evening landscape.  In the foreground near a pond and a group of white beeches is leading a footpath animated by travelers.”

“A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open book in his hand.”

“St. Bartholomew and the Executioner with the knife to fulfil the martyr.”

“Portrait of a young man.  A long while this picture was thought to be Bindi Altoviti’s portrait; now somebody will again have it to be the self-portrait of Raphael.”

“Susan bathing, surprised by the two old man.  In the background the lapidation of the condemned.”

("Lapidation” is good; it is much more elegant than “stoning.”)

“St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at his plague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him.”

“Spring.  The Goddess Flora, sitting.  Behind her a fertile valley perfused by a river.”

“A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, etc.”

“A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans against a table and blows the smoke far away of himself.”

“A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till to the background.”

“Some peasants singing in a cottage.  A woman lets drink a child out of a cup.”

“St. John’s head as a boy—­painted in fresco on a brick.”  (Meaning a tile.)

“A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off right at the end, dressed in black with the same cap.  Attributed to Raphael, but the signation is false.”