l pathos,
even,--and therefore, so far as these traits go, may reproduce them
without detracting seriously from the original. Those other qualities of
the poems which spring from the character of the people of whom and
for whom they were written must depend, for their recognition, on the
sympathetic insight of the reader. We can only promise him the utmost
fidelity in the translation, having taken no other liberty than the
substitution of common idiomatic phrases, peculiar to our language,
for corresponding phrases in the other. The original metre, in every
instance, has been strictly adhered to.

The poems, only fifty-nine in number, consist principally of short songs
or pastorals, and narratives. The latter are written in hexameter, but
by no means classic in form. It is a rough, irregular metre, in which
the trochees preponderate over the dactyls: many of the lines, in fact,
would not bear a critical scansion. We have not scrupled to imitate this
irregularity, as not inconsistent with the plain, ungrammatical speech
of the characters introduced, and the homely air of even the most
imaginative passages. The opening poem is a charmingly wayward idyl,
called "The Meadow," (_Die Wiese_,) the name of a mountain-stream,
which, rising in the Feldberg, the highest peak of the Black Forest,
flows past Hausen, Hebel's early home, on its way to the Rhine. An
extract from it will illustrate what Jean Paul calls the "hazardous
boldness" of Hebel's personifications:--

Beautiful "Meadow," daughter o' Feldberg, I
welcome and greet you.
Listen: I'm goin' to sing a song, and all in
y'r honor,
Makin' a music beside ye, follerin' wherever
you wander.
Born unbeknown in the rocky, hidden heart
o' the mountain,
Suckled o' clouds and fogs, and weaned by
the waters o' heaven,
There you slep' like a babblin' baby, a-kep'
in the bed-room,
Secret, and tenderly cared-for: and eye o'
man never saw you,--
Never peeked through a key-hole and saw
my little girl sleepin'
Sound in her chamber o' crystal, rocked in
her cradle o' silver.
Neither an ear o' man ever listened to hear
her a-breathin',
No, nor her voice all alone to herself
a-laughin' or cryin'.
Only the close little spirits that know every
passage and entrance,
In and out dodgin', they brought ye up and
teached ye to toddle,
Gev' you a cheerful natur', and larnt you
how to be useful:
Yes,