d precision in the
expression of the thought, with minute exactness of version. We
are surprised that Mr. Sawyer should have rested his claim for the
excellence and superiority of his translation mainly upon this quality
of literalism, for it is often the case that the closest literalist is
the worst translator. It is often impossible to render the thoughts
expressed in the peculiar idioms of one tongue into exactly
corresponding idioms of another. There are idiomatic forms, especially
in the Greek, which have no precisely correspondent forms in the
English, and yet these are not unfrequently the most forcible
expressions of any to be found in the original; any attempt to render
these literally must be abortive; and a literal rendering, or as nearly
literal as possible, is the worst translation, because it sacrifices
the clearness, force, and precision, to say nothing of the grace and
delicacy, of the original. The French language abounds in words and
phrases the literal translation of which into English perverts the
meaning and destroys the force of the original. Still more is a strictly
literal rendering incompatible with the preservation and transference of
the beauties of style and the strength of diction. The widest range of
the thought, its more delicate shades and subtiler connections, often
depend in great part upon the peculiar forms of the language in which
they are first clothed; and by a strictly literal translation the scope
of the thought is narrowed, its finer lines obscured, and that which
is of more importance than all else, the fitness of the expression, is
altogether lost. The utmost strictness of literal translation is a poor
compensation for the resultant poverty of language and dilution of
thought; and by as much as the original is more impressive in its rich
and fitting garb, by so much the more is it made to appear mean and
unlike itself when forced to clothe itself in scanty second-hand
habiliments.

We have said thus much on this point for two reasons: first, because it
is on this chiefly that Mr. Sawyer appeals to the public for a verdict
in favor of his translation; and secondly, because it is a common and
popular notion, that, the more literal a translation can be made,
especially in the case of the Bible, the better and more trustworthy
it will be. And we are willing to admit, that, in translating the Holy
Scriptures, the greatest degree of strictness in literal rendering,
compatible with