ared that they must be prized as curiosities and
rarities rather than as interpreters and guides. If a thoroughly
reliable library of classical translations, on as literal a plan as
possible, could be formed, it would be a real boon to the public--it
would be what Bohn's Series ought to have been. Of course, in the
department of translation there are two leading divisions--the ancient
and the modern classics; and for much the same reason that a story or
a _jeu d'esprit_ seldom bears transplanting from one soil to another,
both these branches of literature are apt to suffer when they change
their garb. Almost every man who writes is influenced by dominant
environments, whether he be Greek or Roman, or Oriental, or modern
European of whatever nationality; and his mere expressions or sense
rendered into a foreign tongue are usually like a painting without a
background or an atmosphere. We may range over the whole field from
the most ancient times to the most modern, and the same thing
manifests itself. Open before me is an illustration which will answer
the purpose as well as any other, in the shape of Muirhead's version
of the _Vaux de Vire_ of Jean le Houx. At page 105 we have the
following stanza:--

"Lorsque me presse l'heure,
Je retourne au logis;
Ma femme est la qui pleure,
Ainsi qu'il m'est aduis,
Et me dict en cholere:
'Que fay ie seule au lict?
Est il seant de boire
Ainsi jusqu'a minuict?'"

Mr. Muirhead translates thus--

"When late the hour appears,
Returning to my home,
My wife is there in tears,
As I hear when I come.
She greets me testily:
'I lie a-bed alone:
Do you thus shamelessly
Carouse till midnight's gone?'"

The same kind of paraphrastic dilution runs through the volume; nor is
Mr. Muirhead wholly to blame. The original is idiomatic and terse, and
he could not find exact equivalents in numerous cases. _Ab uno disce
omnes._ But what a privilege it becomes to be able to dispense with
interpreters! My admiration of these festive _chansons_ arises from my
appreciation of them in their native costume and diction. The Knight
of La Mancha was of my opinion herein, for he likened a translation to
a piece of Flemish tapestry seen on the wrong side.

A corollary which naturally suggests itself to my mind is that if a
familiarity--say, even with Latin and French alone--is expedient on no
other account, it is eminen