The translator most heartily dissents from Hayward’s assertion that a translator of Faust “must sacrifice either metre or meaning.”  At least he flatters himself that he has made, in the main, (not a compromise between meaning and melody, though in certain instances he may have fallen into that, but) a combination of the meaning with the melody, which latter is so important, so vital a part of the lyric poem’s meaning, in any worthy sense.  “No poetic translation,” says Hayward’s reviewer, already quoted, “can give the rhythm and rhyme of the original; it can only substitute the rhythm and rhyme of the translator.”  One might just as well say “no prose translation can give the sense and spirit of the original; it can only substitute the sense and spirit of the words and phrases of the translator’s language;” and then, these two assertions balancing each other, there will remain in the metrical translator’s favor, that he may come as near to giving both the letter and the spirit, as the effects of the Babel dispersion will allow.

As to the original creation, which he has attempted here to reproduce, the translator might say something, but prefers leaving his readers to the poet himself, as revealed in the poem, and to the various commentaries of which we have some accounts, at least, in English.  A French translator of the poem speaks in his introduction as follows:  “This Faust, conceived by him in his youth, completed in ripe age, the idea of which he carried with him through all the commotions of his life, as Camoens bore his poem with him through the waves, this Faust contains him entire.  The thirst for knowledge and the martyrdom of doubt, had they not tormented his early years?  Whence came to him the thought of taking refuge in a supernatural realm, of appealing to invisible powers, which plunged him, for a considerable time, into the dreams of Illuminati and made him even invent a religion?  This irony of Mephistopheles, who carries on so audacious a game with the weakness and the desires of man, is it not the mocking, scornful side of the poet’s spirit, a leaning to sullenness, which can be traced even into the earliest years of his life, a bitter leaven thrown into a strong soul forever by early satiety?  The character of Faust especially, the man whose burning, untiring heart can neither enjoy fortune nor do without it, who gives himself unconditionally and watches himself with mistrust, who unites the enthusiasm of passion and the dejectedness of despair, is not this an eloquent opening up of the most secret and tumultuous part of the poet’s soul?  And now, to complete the image of his inner life, he has added the transcendingly sweet person of Margaret, an exalted reminiscence of a young girl, by whom, at the age of fourteen, he thought himself beloved, whose image ever floated round him, and has contributed some traits to each of his heroines.  This heavenly surrender of a simple, good, and tender heart contrasts wonderfully with the sensual and gloomy passion of the lover, who, in the midst of his love-dreams, is persecuted by the phantoms of his imagination and by the nightmares of thought, with those sorrows of a soul, which is crushed, but not extinguished, which is tormented by the invincible want of happiness and the bitter feeling, how hard a thing it is to receive or to bestow.”