The majority of the popular and current versions of the classics are unsatisfying and treacherous, because they have been executed either by under-paid scholars, like Bohn's Series, or by persons who have had a tendency to put themselves in the place of their author.
We may not be very willing to part with our old favourites, such as Chapman's _Homer_, Florio's _Montaigne_, North's _Plutarch_, Shelton's _Don Quixote_, Urquhart's _Rabelais_, and Smollett's _Gil Blas_; but it is to be feared 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'à minuict?'"
"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.