matter little; but there is a style in writing as there is a bouquet in wine, and if M. Guizot's be a little thin, it is yet pure, refined, and sparkling, with a delicate aroma. As he presents it to us, it is never flat or insipid; but from M. Guizot's flask to his translator's bucket is a lamentable plunge, and whatever spirit the original possessed we find, for the most part, dissipated in the transfer. A reconstruction into verbose, round-in-the-mouth sentences, is the utter destruction of M. Guizot's French. The sense comes muffled, as though the voice reached you through a feather bed. Let any one who cares to be at so much trouble, read separately this book and its translation, and he will be surprised to find how much is lost when style is lost. The two versions leave absolutely different impressions of the author's mind.

Without any special search for glaring instances, we will begin at the beginning. We will take the first dozen pages (written when the translator, fresh to his work, could hardly have begun to slip through weariness), and see what has been made of them. The very title, we regret to say, has been altered in significance. M. Guizot wrote History of the Commonwealth of England and of Cromwell, and this the translator brings into compatibility with English idiom by writing History of Oliver Cromwell and the English Commonwealth. It does not occur to him that there may be sense, no less than sound, in the order of the words placed upon his title-page by the historian. His problem is to impart what he conceives to be an easy flow to a given number of vocables; and if for him they flow better upside down than straightforward, they are, as in this title, inverted accordingly.

It is a noticeable peculiarity of M. Guizot, that in characterising historical persons he shows himself prone to dwell on the contradictory appearances assumed by the same nature in a man. Whenever it is possible, he marks the two sides which belong to human character, and the ease with which opposite opinions may with no dishonesty be formed. Of this there is of course no

example in his book, or in the whole range of human history, so prominent as Cromwell himself; and as all opposite qualities maintain the balance of an active mind, the temptation is great to the historian to bring out the expression of such contrasts in a strong antithesis. So strong in M. Guizot, indeed, is generally this form of speech, that it takes but the least additional strain to turn it into nonsense; and not seldom his translator goes far to effect this, by multiplying words without the least necessity. It is quite curious how he yields to the temptation of rolling off high-sounding sentences. We have an instance in the opening words of the book. He cannot give simply even such an epithet as "the lustre of "their actions and their destiny," in the very first sentence, "l'éclat de leur actions et de leur destinée," without turning it into "the splendour of their actions "and the magnitude of their destiny."

The history begins with a picture of the Long Parliament under its republican chiefs, reduced in number by secessions following the execution of the King, and regarded without sympathy by the main body of the people. In the February following the execution, there were not more than seventy-seven members who recorded votes at any of the divisions, and of these divisions M. Guizot counts eight. The translator alters this into ten, without a note to indicate the change. The parliamentary leaders, M. Guizot continues, set to work, "avec une "ardeur pleine en même temps de foi et d'inquiétude:" a hint of the secret disquiet at the heart of theorists committed to action, which in the translation loses both subtlety and sense by the exaggeration of disquiet into anxiety, and by the yoking of an adjective to each noun for the more dignified and sonorous roll of the period. They set to work, says the translator, with an ardour full" at once of strong faith and deep anxiety." Enter thus upon the sentence the words strong and deep, and exeunt from the sense of it the things strength and depth. Forty-one councillors of state were presently appointed,

VOL. I.

and among those chosen, says M. Guizot, there were five superior magistrates, and twenty-eight country gentlemen and citizens: but these numbers, again without a note to say that he is not translating, the translator alters, one into three, the other into thirty. When these councillors met, continues the historian, they were required to sign an engagement approving of all that had been done "in "the king's trial, and in the abolition of monarchy and "of the house of lords:" but this expression is too simple for the translator, who words it and double words it, "in the king's trial, in the overthrow of kingship, and "in the abolition of the house of lords." Twenty-two, proceeds M. Guizot, persisted "à le repousser;" but this word of spirit vanishes from the translation, where it is said, in the interest of English idiom, that they persisted "in refusing it." The substance of their reasons, adds M. Guizot, the tone of his mind insensibly colouring his expression, was that they "refused to associate them"selves" with the past; but heavily clouded is this hint of a personal stain, and of the dread of complicity, when the translator turns it into " refused to give their sanc"tion." Excited by the censure so implied, resumes M. Guizot, the House nevertheless checked its own resentment (“on ne voulut pas faire éclater les dissensions "des republicains"); and here his temperate and subtle tone again directs attention to the weakness of the theoretical republicans, in the fact that they did not wish to publish abroad their dissensions. But the entire sense of it is lost by the translator, who thus again words and double words and smothers it in idiom. "To originate "dissensions among the republicans would, it was felt, "be madness." There is already discord in the camp, suggests M. Guizot. Discord, suggests his translator, had yet to begin, and these were not men mad enough to set it going. The translator may be right, but he is not translating M. Guizot.

The historian still pursues his theme. "Les régicides "comprirent qu'ils seraient trop faibles s'ils restaient

"seuls;" but that the translation might become "too weak" indeed, the simple words "trop faibles" are multiplied into the idiomatic English of "not strong "enough to maintain their position." The matter was accordingly arranged, says M. Guizot, "sans plus de "bruit." Hushed-up would be no bad idiom for that; but unfortunately hushed-up would mean what M. Guizot means, and so, says the translator, it was arranged "without further difficulty." Significantly M. Guizot adds, of the modified pledge offered by the dissidents, that with it "on se contenta;" which insignificantly the translator renders "it was accepted."

These are small items of criticism, it will be said. But let it be understood that the last seven of them all arise out of a single paragraph, and that the last six are all on the same page; and let any one conceive what murder is done upon the soul of a book, 700 pages long, when a translator sits down in this manner to the work of killing it by inches.

We turn over, and on the first line of the next page read that the compromise described was "to a very great "extent" the work of Cromwell and Sir Henry Vane : "to a very great extent" being the translator's idiom for "surtout." Before we get to the middle of the page we find a date set down as November, without any note of its having been written December in the text. On the first line of the next page, Vane's suggestion of an oath of fidelity simply referring to the future is spoken of as an idea whereof Cromwell was one of the most eager

66

" to

express his entire approval:" the translator in that supplying his peculiar idiom for "à s'en contenter." Similarly we find, in the sentence following, that for "nul" the English idiom is no one for a moment." Of the committee of three who held the powers of the Admiralty, M. Guizot says that Vane "était l'âme;" and his translator says (diluting it into his idiom), that Vane "was the "chief." Blake then enters on the scene, by whom, according to M. Guizot, the glory of the Commonwealth

at sea was hereafter "à faire;" and this expression is rendered" to augment," that its spirit may be utterly destroyed.

We promised to comment on the first dozen pages of the authorised English version of M. Guizot's Commonwealth and Cromwell, and if we redeem our promise we must discuss four more. Rather than do that, we will break it. But we quote from both texts the beginning of page nine; the English water side by side with the French wine; and we think no reader who examines it will desire that we should splash on through the rest of this page, or the pages following. The passage, feeble as it is, is far above the average; for in it the sense of the text does absolutely survive what the translator overlays it with, though in what condition the reader will see.

"La chambre avait touché et pourvu à tout; la legislation, la diplomatie, la justice, la police, les finances, l'armée, la flotte étaient dans ses mains. Pour paraître aussi desintéressée qu'elle était active, elle admit les membres qui s'étaient séparés du parti vainqueur, au moment de sa rupture definitive avec le roi, a reprendre leur place dans ses rangs, mais en leur imposant un tel désaveu de leurs anciens votes que bien peu d'entre eux purent s'y résoudre."

"The house had revised and arranged every department of the administration; the legislation and diplomacy of the country, the courts of justice, the police, the finances, the army, and the fleet, were all in its hands. То арpear as disinterested as it was active, it permitted those members who had separated from the conquering party, at the moment of its definitive rupture with the king, to resume their seats in its midst; but it required from them at the same time such a disavowal of their former votes, that very few could persuade themselves to take advantage of this concession."

Such is the translation which M. Guizot has authorised, and which the law now protects against any better that might replace it. The example should not be thrown away. It is an evil, but ought not to be a necessary evil, of the protection given under international copyright, that if a book be marred in the translation, it is marred