Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1854, by

Garrigue & Christern, in the Clerk's office of the District Court for the southern District of New-York.

TO THE MEMORY

OF

FERDINANDA

HIS WIFE

OF WHOSE VALUABLE ASSISTANCE DURING ITS PROGRESS HE WAS DEPRIVED BY DEATH

THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED

BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

If it be true, what has been so often said, that only a poet can be a good translator of poetry, the Author trembles for the success of his work, for, though he has been "guilty of rhyme," he now appears before the public for the first time in verse.

That not only poems which have been frequently translated are admitted into this collection, but also some which have been translated by Bulwer, Hemans, Longfellow, and other distinguished poets, is a presumption in excuse of which a few words may not be out of place. It was intended to present the English reader not merely with what was new, but with a complete outline of modern German poetry; rence, without regard to what had been already translated,

it was necessary to choose but the richest gems from the exhaustless mine, the most popular pieces of the most celebrated poets. Some of them indeed have been translated almost usque ad nauseum. What English translator of German poetry has not essayed his powers on Schiller's "Song of the Bell," and Goethe's "ErlKing?"

The selection commences with the first dawn of the second classical period, as it has been called by the Germans, and, indeed, the names of Hartmann von der Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide, and Gottfried von Strassburg, justify them, in some measure, in looking upon the first half of the thirteenth century as the first classical period of their literature. The poets are not divided into the schools in which they are usually classed by German historians of literature, but arranged simply according to priority of birth. As to the poets selected, it was a matter of some difficulty to choose from several hundreds without doing injustice to the fame of some. The reader, who is at all acquainted with the poetical literature of Germany, will find that many poets of reputation have been omitted. On examination, however, it will perhaps be found that their fame rests rather on