History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, &c., Volume 4

J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNÉ
MARTIN LUTHER BEFORE THE DIET AT WORMS NEW YORK R CARTER 58 CANAL STREET.
PRESIDENT OF THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF GENEVA, AND MEMBER OF THE SOCIETE EVANGELIQUE. ASSISTED IN THE PREPARATION OF THE ENGLISH ORIGINAL BY H. WHITE, B.A. TRIN. COLL. CAMBRIDGE, M.A. AND PH. DR. HEIDELBERG. VOL. IV. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER, 58 CANAL STREET; AND PITTSBURG, 56 MARKET STREET. 1846.
When a foreigner visits certain countries, as England, Scotland, or America, he is sometimes presented with the rights of citizenship. Such has been the privilege of the History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century. From 150,000 to 200,000 copies are in circulation, in the English language, in the countries I have just mentioned; while in France the number hardly exceeds 4000. This is a real adoption,—naturalizing this Work in the countries that have received it with so much favour.
I accept this honour. Accordingly, while the former Volumes of my History were originally published in France; now that, after a lapse of five years, I think of issuing a continuation of it, I do so in Great Britain.
This is not the only change in the mode of publication. I did not think it right to leave to translators, as in the cases of the former Volumes, the task of expressing my ideas in English. The best translations are always faulty; and the Author alone can have the certainty of conveying his idea, his whole idea, and nothing but his idea. Without overlooking the merit that the several existing translations may possess, even the best of them is not free from inaccuracies, more or less important. Of these I have given specimens in the Preface to the New Translation of the former Volumes by Dr. White, which has been revised by me, and which will shortly be published by Messrs. Oliver and Boyd. These inaccuracies, no doubt most involuntary, contributed in giving rise to a very severe contest that took place in America, on the subject of this Work, between the Episcopalians and the Baptists on the one hand, and the Presbyterians on the other,—a contest that I hope is now terminated, but in which (as a New York correspondent informed me) one of the most beneficial and powerful Christian Societies of the United States had been on the brink of dissolution.