A lengthy review article (labeled "Art. IV" in the journal issue), unsigned, containing a prose summary of Beowulf and Longfellow's verse translation of a passage from Beowulf (ll. 189-257, slightly compressed, and rendered as 130 lines of verse, taking half-lines as independent lines). No attribution to Longfellow is given within the journal, but portions of this article are reused in Longfellow's anthology The Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845), where authorship is clear.

The full title of the review article is given thus:

Art. IV.—1. A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language, containing the Accentuation; the Grammatical Inflections; the Irregular Words referred to their Themes; the Parallel Terms from the other Gothic Languages; the Meaning of the Anglo-Saxon in English and Latin; and copious English and Latin Indexes, serving as a Dictionary of English and Anglo-Saxon, as well as of Latin and Anglo-Saxon. With a Preface on the Germanic Tongues; a Map of Languages, and the Essentials of Anglo-Saxon Grammar. By the Rev. J. Bosworth. London: 1837. 8vo. pp. 868.

2. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version of Boëthius, "De Consolatione Philosophiæ"; with an English Translation, and Notes. By J. S. Cardale. London: 1829. 8vo. pp. 425.

3. Analecta Anglo-Saxonica. A Selection, in Prose and Verse, from Anglo-Saxon Authors of various Ages, with a Glossary. Designed chiefly as a First Book for Students. By Benjamin Thorpe. London: 1834. 8vo. pp. 268.

4. Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. By John Josias Conybeare. London: 1826. 8vo. pp. 286.

5. The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, the Traveller's Song, and the Battle of Finnesburgh, edited, together with a Glossary of the more Difficult Words, and an Historical Preface, by John M. Kemble, Esq., M.A. London: 1833. 12mo. pp. 260.

Pages 102-6 summarize the storyline of Beowulf and then provide one full passage in verse translation.

The summary begins:

The poem begins with a description of King Hrothgar the Scylding, in his great hall of Heort, which reëchoed with the sound of harp and song. But not far off, in the fens and marshes of Jutland, dwelt a grim and monstrous giant, called Grendel, a descendant of Cain. This troublesome individual was in the habit of occasionally visiting the Scylding's palace by night, to see, as the author rather quaintly says, "how the doughty Danes found themselves after their beer-carouse." (102-3)

And ends:

Beowulf has grown old. He has reigned fifty years; and now, in his gray old age, is troubled by the devastations of a monstrous Fire-drake, so that his metropolis is beleaguered, and he can no longer fly his hawks and merles in the open country. He resolves, at length, to fight with this Fire-drake; and, with the help of his attendant, Wiglaf, overcomes him. The land is made rich by the treasures found in the dragon's cave: but Beowulf dies of his wounds.

Thus departs Beowulf, the Sea-Goth; of the world-kings the mildest to men, the strongest of hand, the most clement to his people, the most desirous of glory. (103-4).

The translated passage (ll. 189-257 of the poem) begins:

Thus then much care-worn
the son of Healfden
sorrowed evermore,
nor might the prudent hero
his woes avert.
The war was too hard,
too loath and longsome,
that on the people came,
dire wrath and grim,
of night-woes the worst.
This from home heard
Higelac's Thane,
good among the Goths,
Grendel's deeds. (104)

And ends:

["]Now would I fain
your origin know
e'er ye forth
as false spies
into the Land of the Danes
Farther fare.
Now ye dwellers afar-off!
ye sailors of the sea!
listen to my
one-fold thought.
Quickest is best
to make known
whence your coming may be. (106; absence of closing quotation mark sic; "e'er" sic, corrected to "ere" in Longfellow's Poetry and Poets of Europe, 1845)

• Hugh Magennis, Translating Beowulf: Modern Versions in English Verse (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011), 69-70.

Fry, MO1, and MO2 state that this review article contains 5 translations from Beowulf; it contains only 1.

Fry, MO1, and GR indicate that this article is reprinted in Longfellow's anthology The Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845). However, that 1845 work uses a greatly reduced and rearranged verson of this 1838 article.

The prose summary is not represented in MO2.

Fry, MO1, and GR reasonably enough represent the title of Longfellow's 1838 work as "Anglo-Saxon Literature," but in the journal this designation appears as the running head, not a title. (This title may also derive from its twice-revised form as it appears in Longfellow's 1857 Prose Works, vol. 1, pp. 384-411, where it is so retitled.) The on-page heading of the article and its listing in the journal's Table of Contents both consist of the designation "Art. IV" and the publication information of all 5 works reviewed by Longfellow, as detailed in the Descriptive Notes above.

BAM.