rich and rare, that took life in foreign
attire, and continue to charm human hearts, and souls, and minds, in a
change of light that shows them sometimes even more beautiful than when
first they had a place among airy creatures!

But methinks we hear some wiseacre, who is no wizard, exclaim:--"Oh! to be
enjoyed, it must be read in the original!" What! the Bible? You have no
Hebrew, and little Greek, but surely you sometimes dip into the Old and
into the New Testament.

To treat the question more argumentatively, let Prose Composition be
divided into History, Philosophy, Oratory. In History, Translation--say
into English--is easiest, and in all cases practicable. The information
transferred is the chief thing asked, even if Style be lost--with some
writers a small, with others no doubt a considerable, with a few a great
loss. But the facts, that is, the events, and all the characters too, can
be turned over, although one finer historical fact--the spirit of the
country and time, as breathing in the very Style of the artist, may, yet
need not, evaporate. The Translator, however, should be himself an
historian or antiquary, and should confine himself--as, indeed, if left to
himself he will do--to the nation in whose fate he happens to have had
awakened in him--by influences hard to tell, and perhaps to himself
unknown--the perpetual interest of a sympathy that endears to him, above
all others, that especial region, and the ages that like shadows have
passed over it.

In Philosophy, the Translator's task is harder, and it is higher; but its
accomplishment is open to the zealous lover of truth. The whole philosophy
must be thoroughly possessed by him, or meanings will be lost from, or
imposed on, the author--cases fatal both. Besides, of all writers, a
philosopher most collects extensive and penetrating theories into chosen
words. No dictionary--the soul only of the philosopher interprets these
words. In the new language, you must have great power and mastery to seize
equivalents if there; if not, to create them, or to extricate yourself
with circumlocutions that do not bewilder or mislead--precise and
exquisite. Have we, in our language, many, any such Translations? Not
Taylor's or Sydenham's Plato--not Gillies's Aristotle. Coleridge is
dead--but De Quincey is alive.

In Oratory, the Style is all in all. It is the _ipsissimus homo_. He who
"wielded at will that fierce democratic," does not appear unless the
thunder grow