In attempting to present to the English reader some of the best of the poems of Uhland, we must premise that to translate a perfect poem from one language into another is simply an impossibility, and difficult exactly in proportion to the degree in which any poem approaches perfection. The special difficulty of translating German poetry into English, and _vice versâ_, consists in this, that though the two languages are not in their basis much more than dialects of the same original stock, yet German is as generally dissyllabic as English is monosyllabic, owing in part to English having discarded inflection where German retains it. We are aware that many of Uhland’s poems are already known through very good translations, one of those most highly spoken of being that of Mr Platt. Longfellow has also done freely into English verse the ‘Castle by the Sea,’ ‘The Black Knight,’ the ‘Luck of Edenhall,’ and others, and has succeeded admirably in catching the spirit of the original. Not having Mr Platt’s translations before us, as we write in Germany, we must apologise, in our zeal for Uhland’s memory, for attempts of our own in the same direction, in which we have tried to reproduce as nearly as we can the ideas of the original in the metres in which they appeared. It is impossible to find a song in the whole collection more perfect than ‘Der Wirthin Töchterlein.’ There is not a word or thought one would wish changed. The pathos is expressed, without a single pathetic epithet, solely by the situation. This poem has been interpreted politically, as alluding to the different feelings with which three classes of patriots regard the corpse of German liberty. But to our mind this spoils the simplicity of the picture. It is more likely to be true that the poem was occasioned by an incident of Uhland’s youth, since it is said that he once stopped some students who were singing it under his window, telling them not to end it, as the end had too close a personal interest for him. If this be true, the poem is more complimentary to the memory of the fair maid of the inn than to the lady who became Frau Uhland. But poets will be poets, as boys will be boys. THE LANDLADY’S DAUGHTER. Three students they hied them over the Rhine, And there they turned in at a landlady’s sign. “Landlady, hast thou good beer and wine? And where is that beauteous daughter of thine?” “My beer and wine are fresh and clear; My daughter she lies on the funeral-bier.” And when they did enter the inner room, There lay she all white in a shrine of gloom. The first from her face the veil he took, And, gazing upon her with sorrowful look, “Oh, wert thou living, thou fairest maid, ’Tis thee I would love from this hour,” he said.