instalment of a future
meaning; and, by the time the next sheet arrives with the syllables in
arrear, we first learn into what confounded scrapes we have fallen by
guessing and translating at hap-hazard. _Nomina sunt odiosa_: else--but
I shall content myself with reminding the public of the well-known
and sad mishap that occurred in the translation of Kenilworth. In
another instance the sheet unfortunately closed thus:--"_to save
himself from these disasters, he became an agent of Smith-_;" and we
all translated--"um sich aus diesen truebseligkeiten zu erretten, wurde
er Agent bei einem Schmiedemeister;" that is, "_he became foreman to a
blacksmith_." Now sad it is to tell what followed: we had dashed at it,
and waited in trembling hope for the result: next morning's post
arrived, and showed that all Germany had been basely betrayed by a
catch-word of Mr. Constable's. For the next sheet took up the imperfect
and embryo catch-word thus:--"_field matches, or marriages contracted
fur the sake of money_;" and the whole Gasman sentence should have been
repaired and put to rights as follows: "Er negocirte, um sich
aufzuhelfen, die sogenannten Smithfields heirathen oder Ehen, welche
des Gewinnstes wegen geschlossen werden:" I say, it _should_ have been:
but woe is me! it was too late: the translated sheet had been already
printed off with the blacksmith in it (lord confound him!); and the
blacksmith is there to this day, and cannot be ejected.

You see, Sir Walter, into what "sloughs of despond" we German
translators fall--with the sad necessity of dragging your honor after
us. Yet this is but a part of the general woe. When you hear in every
bookseller's shop throughout Germany one unanimous complaint of the
non-purchasing public and of those great profit-absorbing whirlpools,
the circulating libraries,--in short all possible causes of diminished
sale on the one hand; and on the other hand the forestalling spirit of
competition among the translation-jobbers, bidding over each other's
heads as at an auction, where the translation is knocked down to him
that will contract for bringing his wares soonest to market;--hearing
all this, Sir Walter, you will perceive that our old German proverb
"_Eile mit Weile_," (i.e. Festina lente, or _the more haste, the less
speed_) must in this case, where _haste_ happens to be the one great
qualification and _sine-qua-non_ of a translator, be thrown altogether
into the shade by that other pro