Begin the HTML special character copy of the Breitmann Ballads
The Breitmann Ballads by Charles G. Leland.
1889
TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE NICHOLAS TRÜBNER
This Work is Dedicated by Charles G. Leland
This Project Gutenberg Edition is dedicated to:
Poul and Karen Anderson without whose inspiration it would not exist. Geoff Kidd Krista Rourke
Ad Musan. "Est mihi schoena etenim et praestanti corpore liebsta Haec sola est mea Musa meoque regierit in Herza. Huic me ergebo ipsum meaque illi abstatto geluebda, Huic ebrensaulas aufrichto opfroque Geschenka, Hic etiam absingo liedros et carmina scribo." -- Rapsodia Andra, Leipzig, 17th Century Preface To the Edition of 1889.
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Though twenty years have passed since the first appearance of the "Breitmann Ballads" in a collected form, the author is deeply gratified -- and not less sincerely grateful to the public -- in knowing that Hans still lives in many memories, that he continues to be quoted when writers wish to illustrate an exuberantly joyous "barty" or ladies so very fashionably dressed as to recall "de maidens mit nodings on," and that no inconsiderable number of those who are "beginning German" continue to be addressed by sportive friends in the Breitmann dialect as a compliment to their capacity as linguists. For as a young medical student is asked by anxious intimates if he has got as far as salts, I have heard inquiries addressed to tyros in Teutonic whether they had mastered these songs. As I have realised all of this from newspapers and novels, even during the past few weeks, and have learned that a new and very expensive edition of the work has just appeared in America, I trust that I may be pardoned for a self-gratulation, which is, after all really gratitude to those who have demanded of the English publisher another issue. My chief pleasure in this -- though it be mingled with sorrow -- is, that it enables me to dedicate to the memory of my friend the late NICHOLAS TRÜBNER the most complete edition of the Ballads ever printed. I can think of no more appropriate tribute to his memory, since he was not only the first publisher of the work in England, but collaborated with the author in editing it so far as to greatly improve and extend the whole. This is more fully set forth in the Introduction to the Glossary, which is all his own. The memory of the deep personal interest which he took in the poems, his delight in being their publisher, his fondness for reciting them, is and ever will be to me indescribably touching; such experiences being rare in any life. He was an immensely general and yet thorough scholar, and I am certain that I never met with any man in my life who to such an extensive bibliographical knowledge added so much familiarity with the contents of books. And he was familiar with nothing which did not interest him, which is rare indeed among men who MUST know something of thousands of works -- in fact, he was a wonderful and very original book in himself, which, if it had ever been written out and published, would have never died. His was one of the instances which give the world good cause to regret that the art of autobiography is of all others the one least taught or studied. There are few characters more interesting than those in which the practical man of business is combined with the scholar, because of the contrasts, or varied play of light and shadow, in them, and this was, absolutely to perfection, that of Mr. Trübner. And if I have re-edited this work, it was that I might have an opportunity of recording it.
There are others to whom I owe sincere gratitude for interest displayed in this work when it was young. The first of these was the late CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED of New York. With the exception of the "Barty," most of the poems in the first edition were written merely to fill up letters to him, and as I kept no copy of them, they would have been forgotten, had he not preserved and printed them after a time in a sporting paper. Nor would they even after this have appeared (though Mr. Bristed once tried to surprise me with a privately printed collection of them, which attempt failed) had not Mr. RINGWALT, my collaborator on the PHILADELPHIA PRESS, and also a printer, had such faith in the work as to have it "set up" in his office, offering to try an edition for me. This was transferred to PETERSON BROTHERS, in whose hands the sale became at once very great; and I should be truly ungrateful if I omitted to mention among the many writers who were very kind in reviews, Mr. GEORGE A. SALA, who was chiefly influential in introducing Hans Breitmann to the English public, and who has ever been his warmest friend. Another friend who encouraged and aided me by criticism was the late OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, a man of immense erudition, especially in archæology, curiosa and facetiæ. I trust that I may be pardoned for here mentioning that he often spoke of Breitmann's "Interview with the Pope" as his favorite Macaronic poem, which, as he had published two volumes of Macaronea, was praise indeed. His theory was, that as Macaronics were the ultra-extravagance of poetry, he who wrote most recklessly in them did best; in fact, that they should excel in first-rate BADNESS; and from this point of view it is possible that Breitmann's Latin lyric is not devoid of merit, since assuredly nobody ever wrote a worse. The late LORD LYTTON, or "Bulwer," was also kind enough to take an interest in these Ballads, which was to me as gratifying as it was amazing. It was one of the great surprises of my life. I have a long letter from him, addressed to me on the appearance of the collected edition, in 1870. In it he spoke with warmest compliment of the poem of "Leyden," and the first verses of "Breitmann in Belgium."
