flator, in his remark that the reader could not "expect a French Republican to write like a Royalift," we ftill think that when an Englishman undertakes to introduce to the notice of his countrymen a foreign production replete with political principles of a noxious tendency, it is incumbent upon him to point out the fallacy, the falfehood, and the danger of fuch principles, either in a preface or notes. This task should not be left to the Reviewer; it is, unquestionably, the duty of the man who circulates the poifon to fupply the antidote. We shall now fuffer the tranflator to speak for himself. His attack upon his adverfary is fair; and we hope the chastisement of one ignorant tranflator will have the falutary effect of deterring others from undertaking a task, for which they are wholly difqualified, and for a due discharge of which much greater abilities are neceffary than the generality of readers, and, of writers too, are willing to admit. "I must here inform the reader that, by a foolish prejudice, I was ridiculous enough to fuppofe, that, in all literary compofition, foleeifms were to be ftudiously avoided; but what innovation may not an eftablished author practife? Dr. Hunter has accordingly availed himfelf of this privilege in innumerable inftances, and, difdaining the fervile rules of grammar, at once confounded fingular and plural, pronouns perfonal and imperfonal, &c. in a moft unprecedented and whimfical variety. Ex. The colours of the plumage of the percnopters was not the fame in all the individuals.* Funds were fet apart for its fupport (fpeaking of the ichneumon). They served up to him, as to cats, bread steeped in milk, or fifh of the Nile cut down in morfels, and it was generally forbidden to kill any of the race. I found chryfomal attached to the tuft of my cap; be ftuck fo clofe, that I could not tear it off, &c. The houhou is not a folitary bird; they go in pairs; he fits on her eggs and rears her brood. It does not go to feek for the thick fhades of the foreft. § But even these afylums, which the quail has not always fufficient ftrength to reach, and the distance of which frequently occafions its lofs, proves alfo places of deftruction to them.' " "In his preface, Dr. Hunter, with peculiar modefty, fays, he flatters himself that his tranflation will be found a fair and faithful tranfcript of the original.' We never feel fo bold as in afferting the truth. Armed with this ægis, the Doctor may bid defiance to the moft faftidious critics, and, without fear of being put to the blush, * « Vol. iii. Pp. 85. 96. of the original.-P. 546 of this edit.” "Vol. i. PP. 295. 392 ibid..-P. 190 ibid.” ‡ "Vol. iii. PP. 131. 148 ibid.-P. 576 ibid.” "Vol. i. PP. 307. 341 ibid.-P. 199 ibid." "Vol. iii. Pr. 320. 364 ibid.-P. 704 ibid." challenge challenge the Reviewers to point out a fingle inftance of incorrectness or want of fidelity in his translation. The following paffages from it are only improvements upon the original t : 'L'on apportoit fur les marchés de Roffette une grande quantité de ces oiseaux ils s'y vendoient à très bient compte.' Vol. i. P. 355. Pline en parle comme étant bonne à manger et à bruler.' Vol. iii. P. 256. S'il faut en croire la critique.' Vol. iii. P. 16. Thefe birds were brought to the markets of Roffetta, and were fold to a very good account.”. Vol. i. p. 206. t 'Pliny mentions it (oil of fefamum) as being equally unfit to eat or to burn.' Vol. iii. p. 225.§ If we must believe a certain critic.' Vol. iii. P. 15. * "I cannot here forbear inferting, from the preface to Chambaud's quarto Dictionary, a paffage which I am afraid fome readers may be apt to apply to the author of this tranflation; for no perfon furely could have the hardihood to apply it to Henry Hunter, D.D."!!! The wretched tranflations which we daily fee of foreign productions evidently prove that their authors do not thoroughly understand the language from which they tranflate. They even confound the common and proper nouns. Thus, among an infinite number of inftances which could be brought of their ignorance, the translator of the Age of Louis XIV. fpeaks of thofe famous lines made upon a child killed by procuring abortion, called in French un avorton, as if M. l'Avorton was the name of the author. He writes that St. Anthony's gate, one of the gates of Paris, was decorated like a hearfe, inftead of fortified with a portcullis. But the higheft of all is in Voltaire's Epistle to fome Men of Letters, tranflated in one of the Magazines, that Defcartes was banished from Batavia. Batavia! ay, Batavia, in the sense of our tranflator, is English for une ville Batave, an't pleafe you. Aaron Hill, however, tranflated fome years ago this verfe of Voltaire with the fame expreffion, juftly. La grandeur d'un Batave eft de vivre fans maître; The difference between the two tranflators is very plain. The one was a gentleman, who endeavoured to deferve the efteem of the public; the other a bookfeller's drudge, who wrote for bread; and from the latter no good production can be expected. How can it be otherwife? A man who tranflates for fo much a sheet is obliged to do a certain quantity of his tafk every day. If he meets with any difficulty, any thing hard to be understood in his author, he cannot afford time to meditate upon the matter, ftill less to confult either books or He is in hafte; hunger pleads difpatch; he cannot stop, he muft go on, and write what comes uppermoft.' + This is, apparently, a typographical error-the word is bon. Rev. "P. 206 of this edit. § P. 638 ibid. || P. 500 ibid." men. • Des C 2 Des grains de pluie.' Vol. iii. P. 44. La rudeffe aride et brûlante du fol.' Vol. iii. P. 91. Le prix du roulage.' Vol.iii. P. 214. Les couleurs dont ils faifoient ufage le mordant fervant à les incorporer dans des corps durs et folides comme la pierre.' Vol. iii. P. 186. A fhower of bail. Vol. iii. P. 40.* The oppreffive fcorching heat of the fun. Vol. iii. p. 81.† 'Les voitures n'étant point en ufage, l'on fe fervoit de mules, que l'on trouvoit à louer, &c.'¶ Si l'on compare l'accueil je reçus de ces prétendus miffionaires, l'on aura bientôt la mesure de l'hofpitalité, &c.' ** que The expenfe of grinding.' Vol. iii. P. 193. ‡ ( "But it is not as a tranflator only that the Doctor excels: the learned and invaluable notes in which he has illuftrated and corrected the errors of his author, exhibit him in the light of a profound critic and acute obferver. His preface, though fhort, is altogether a chefd'œuvre, and will rank him in the republic of letters, even above the claffical author of the Preface to Bellendenus. As a fpecimen of the brilliancy of its ftyle, I felect the following out of a variety of paffages equally beautifully and fublime. How it has fped the world by this time knows. Cæfar's laconic boaft is now curtailed of its third limb. The republican general can go no farther than the veni, vidi; but the vici lies buried without the walls of St. Jean d'Acre. Our author is a very good obferver of what is, but he knows nothing of what will be: he is an excellent naturalist, but a moft wretched prophet: he has miftaken the fond dreams of a patriotic imagination for a revelation from heaven; and, like the baseless fabric of a vifion, leaves not a wreck behind.' || The colours of which they made ufe, the two-edged tool ferving to incorporate them with bodies as hard and as folid as stone." Vol. iii. P. 165. § "Let me not, however, omit devoutly to bend my knee to the Doctor, and pay him my pious homage for having given me the clue to the tranflation of the pronoun indeterminate on, which, as every one knows, is not always eafily anglicifed. I have generally rendered it imperfonally, unless I could find an appofite nominative. I now perceive my error, for the learned divine has untied the Gordian knot familiar as his garter,' and in order to fhew the verfatility of his genius, tranflated on by the pronouns perfonal in all the three different perfons. ( Carriages not being used, they employ mules, which you find ready for hire, &c.' ¶ If we compare the reception I met with from these pretended miffionaries, we fhall very foon have the estimate, &c.'* 2** "P. 517 of this edit. "P. 617 ibid. §"P. 597 ibid. Tranflator's Pref. p.vi." "Vol. i. PP. 201. 222 of the orig.-P. 132 of this edit." **‹‹ Vol. iii. Pr. 120, 136 ibid.— r. 569 ibid." + "P. 544 ibid." 66 L'on L'on foule aux pieds, des coquillages de toute espèce, parmi lefquels j'ai reconnu des moules, des pholades, &c.'* You trample under foot shells of every fpecies, among which I could diftinguish mufcles, limpets, and trumpets, &c.' * "Thefe examples will, I prefume, be fully fufficient to fhew that Dr. Hunter is much better acquainted than myself with the genius and idiom of the French language; and that after he had gratified the general impatience' of the public to fee Sonnini's Travels in English, I ought to hide my diminished head. "Thus when the Oxford bell baptiz'd Great Tom * "Vol. i. Pr. 205. 227 of the original.-P. 134 of this edit." ART. IV. The Progress of the Pilgrim Good-Intent in Jacobinical Times. 12mo. PP, 190. 3s. 6d. Hatchard, London. 1800. N thefe days when many powerful enemies to our faith are employing their utmost efforts in the cause of irreligion, we are happy to notice every exertion which is made on the fide of Chriftianity. But particularly are we glad, when we fee any one expofe the doctrines of infidelity in a plain, familiar, or entertaining manner, when he "holds, as it were, the mirror up to nature, fhews virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and preffure. "" In this country it is not an open enemy whom we have most to fear; such an one may be repelled by fuperior abilities, and greater weight of argument. Well knowing that a direct attack upon our religion, and an open profeffion of disbelief in its doctrines, would fhock the minds of even the most unstable, and end only in his own difcomfiture and difgrace; our enemy has here adopted a more fubtle mode of attack; and has endeavoured, in various ways, fecretly, to fap the foundations of Christianity, Against one of the most common of these is this little tract directed. The author has very juftly obferved in his preface, that " one of the moft powerful corruptions of the human race, has, perhaps, in all ages, been the perverfion of language." To what an extent this has C 3 been been carried in the prefent age, is, at the fame time, a notoricus and an alarming circumftance. Inftructed in the fchool of philofophifm, and the lodges of the Illuminati, vice has walked abroad under the garb and name of virtue; Deism has affumed the title of rational Chriftianity; liberty has been the watch-word of every upstart faction; and, beneath the femblance of philanthropy and fenfibility, the most merciless cruelty has raised the guillotine, and gloried in the deftruction of thousands whofe deaths are fhocking to the feelings of hu manity. The countries of Europe, our own not excepted, can bear a lamentable teftimony to the infidious arts employed by Jacobins to root out the remembrance of Chriftianity from the earth. Be it our care, then, while (as our author says in the preface), it is our boaft, that in this land, no foe to our holy faith has queftioned the authority of any of her doctrines, which fome champion of fuperior ftrength has not arifen to defend; that among us the weight of talents is thrown into the scale of truth;" not only to refift the open attacks of these enemies of our faith, but to use all means to guard against their wiles and fecret approaches: And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, f We doubt not but many of our readers have in their younger days received much entertainment from the perufal of Mr. John Bunyan's allegory of the " Pilgrim's Progrefs" from this world to that which is to come. We would recommend to them to trace the Progrefs of the Pilgrim Good-Intent, in Jacobinical Times. He travelled over the fame ground with their old acquaintance Chriftian, but he met with new difficulties and encountered new enemies. We cannot help remarking, however, and it is a confideration that deferves attention, that although his enemies were different, the arms by which he oppofed them were the fame. The first of thefe, or rather his bofom-friend and counfellor, is a book, similar to that which Evangelift gave Chriftian. In this book, (the Bible) he is to fearch for the knowledge of what he is to do, and what he is to avoid; for advice in every difficulty, and deliverance from every danger. The admonitions which the porter Good Will gives to the Pilgrim, refpecting this book, are fo excellent, that we cannot refift the pleasure of tranfcribing them. This the motto to the book, ‹ Let |
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