free a principle: and all the more if they have not read the originals. For these are safe courses to adopt. All this while I am assuming the plays are well done in their way, which of course I do. On the other hand, they really may not be as well done as I think; on their own principle: and that would really be a fair ground of condemnation.
To W. F. Pollock.
Boulge, Woodbridge,
July 25/53.
My dear Pollock,
Thank you for your letter. Though I believed the Calderon to be on the whole well done and entertaining, I began to wish to be told it was so by others, for fear I had made a total mistake: which would have been a bore. And the very free and easy translation lies open to such easy condemnation, unless it be successful.
Your account of Sherborne rouses all the Dowager within me. I shall have to leave this cottage, I believe, and have not yet found a place sufficiently dull to migrate to. Meanwhile to-morrow I am going to one of my great treats: viz. the Assizes at Ipswich: where I shall see little Voltaire Jervis, [283a] and old Parke, [283b] who I trust will have the gout, he bears it so Christianly.
Boulge, Woodbridge,
Sept. 12/53.
My dear George,
I enclose you a scrap from ‘The Leader’ as you like to see criticisms on my Calderon. I suppose your sisters will send you the Athenæum in which you will see a more determined spit at me. I foresaw (as I think I told you) how likely this was to be the case: and so am not surprized. One must take these chances if one will play at so doubtful a game. I believe those who read the Book, without troubling themselves about whether it is a free Translation or not, like it: but Critics must be supposed to know all, and it is safe to condemn. On the other hand, the Translation may not be good on any ground: and then the Critics are all right.