Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Observations On The English Style Of Writing.
due time ; but my delay was not from the want of a due sense of the value of what you have sent , or ofthe honour you have done me in sending it . But I have had some visitors to whom . I was obliged to attend ; and I have had some business to do , which , though it is not worth your while to be troubled with it , occupied almost every hour of the time I could spare from my guests : until yesterday it was not in my power so much as to . open your Tacitus . .
I have read the first book through ; besides dipping here and there into other parts . lam extremely delighted with it . You have done what hitherto I think has not been done in England : you have given us a translation of a Latin Prose Writer , which may be read with pleasure . It would be no compliment at all to prefer your Translation to the last , which appeared with such a pomp of patronage
. Gordon was an author fashionable in his time , but he never wrote any thing worthy of much notice , but that work , by which he has obtained a kind of eminence in bad writing ; so that one cannot pass it by with mere neglect . Ir is clear to me , tha . t he did not understand the language from which he ventured to translate ; and that he had ,, formed a very whimsical idea of excellence with regard to ours . His
work is wholly remote from the genius of the tongue , in its purity , or in any of its jargons . It is not English nor Irish , nor even his native Scotch . It is not fish nor flesh , nor even good red herrings : your ' s is written with facility and spirit , and you do not often depart from the genuine native idiom of the language . Without attempting , therefore , to modernize terms of art , or to disguise antient customs
under new habits , you have contrived things in such a manner that your readers will find themselves at home . The other translators do not familiarise you with antient Rome . They carry you into a new world . By their uncouth modes of expression , they prevent you from taking an interest in any of its concerns . In spite of you , they turn your mind from the subject , to attend with disgust to their unskilful manner of treating it : from such authors we can learn nothing . I
have always thought the world much obliged to good translators like you . Such are some of the French . They who understand , the orig inal are not those who are under the smallest obligations to you . It is a great satisfaction to see the sense of one good author in the language of another . He is thus alias et idem . Seeing your author in a new point of view , you become better acquainted with him . His ¦
thoughts make a new and deeper impression on the mind . I have always recommended it to young men on their studies , that when they had made themselves thorough masters of a work in the original , then , ( but not till then ) to read it in a translation , if in any modern language a readable translation was to be found . What I say of your translation is really no more than very cold justice to
my sentiments of your great undertaking . I never expected to see so good a translation . I do not pretend that it is wholly free from faults ; but at the same time I think it more easy to discover them than to correct them . There is a style which daily gains ground amongst us , which I should be sorry to see farther advanced by the authority of a Writer of your just reputation . [ TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEST . 1
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Observations On The English Style Of Writing.
due time ; but my delay was not from the want of a due sense of the value of what you have sent , or ofthe honour you have done me in sending it . But I have had some visitors to whom . I was obliged to attend ; and I have had some business to do , which , though it is not worth your while to be troubled with it , occupied almost every hour of the time I could spare from my guests : until yesterday it was not in my power so much as to . open your Tacitus . .
I have read the first book through ; besides dipping here and there into other parts . lam extremely delighted with it . You have done what hitherto I think has not been done in England : you have given us a translation of a Latin Prose Writer , which may be read with pleasure . It would be no compliment at all to prefer your Translation to the last , which appeared with such a pomp of patronage
. Gordon was an author fashionable in his time , but he never wrote any thing worthy of much notice , but that work , by which he has obtained a kind of eminence in bad writing ; so that one cannot pass it by with mere neglect . Ir is clear to me , tha . t he did not understand the language from which he ventured to translate ; and that he had ,, formed a very whimsical idea of excellence with regard to ours . His
work is wholly remote from the genius of the tongue , in its purity , or in any of its jargons . It is not English nor Irish , nor even his native Scotch . It is not fish nor flesh , nor even good red herrings : your ' s is written with facility and spirit , and you do not often depart from the genuine native idiom of the language . Without attempting , therefore , to modernize terms of art , or to disguise antient customs
under new habits , you have contrived things in such a manner that your readers will find themselves at home . The other translators do not familiarise you with antient Rome . They carry you into a new world . By their uncouth modes of expression , they prevent you from taking an interest in any of its concerns . In spite of you , they turn your mind from the subject , to attend with disgust to their unskilful manner of treating it : from such authors we can learn nothing . I
have always thought the world much obliged to good translators like you . Such are some of the French . They who understand , the orig inal are not those who are under the smallest obligations to you . It is a great satisfaction to see the sense of one good author in the language of another . He is thus alias et idem . Seeing your author in a new point of view , you become better acquainted with him . His ¦
thoughts make a new and deeper impression on the mind . I have always recommended it to young men on their studies , that when they had made themselves thorough masters of a work in the original , then , ( but not till then ) to read it in a translation , if in any modern language a readable translation was to be found . What I say of your translation is really no more than very cold justice to
my sentiments of your great undertaking . I never expected to see so good a translation . I do not pretend that it is wholly free from faults ; but at the same time I think it more easy to discover them than to correct them . There is a style which daily gains ground amongst us , which I should be sorry to see farther advanced by the authority of a Writer of your just reputation . [ TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEST . 1