Errettete vom Tode
Der Uebersetzer dich!”
Matthison in his “Gruss aus der Heimath,”[20] pays similar tribute in a vision connected with a visit to Bode’s resting-place in Weimar. It is a fanciful relation: as Bode’s shade is received with jubilation and delight in the Elysian Fields by Cervantes, Rabelais, Montaigne, Fielding and Sterne, the latter censures Bode for distrusting his own creative power, indicating that he might have stood with the group just enumerated, that the fame of being “the most excellent transcriber” of his age should not have sufficed.
In view of all this marked esteem, it is rather surprising to find a few years later a rather sweeping, if apologetic, attack on the rendering of Shandy. J. L. Benzler, the librarian of Graf Stolberg at Wernigerode, published in 1801 a translation of Shandy which bore the legend “Newly translated into German,” but was really a new edition of Bode’s work with various corrections and alterations.[21] Benzler claims in his preface that there had been no translation of the masterpiece worthy of the original, and this was because the existing translation was from the pen of Bode, in whom one had grown to see the very ideal of a translator, and because praise had been so lavishly bestowed on the work by the critics. He then asserts that Bode never made a translation which did not teem with mistakes; he translated incorrectly through insufficient knowledge of English, confusing words which sound alike, made his author say precisely the opposite of what he really did say, was often content with the first best at hand, with the half-right, and often erred in taste;—a wholesale and vigorous charge. After such a disparagement, Benzler disclaims all intention to belittle Bode, or his service, but he condescendingly ascribes Bode’s failure to his lowly origin, his lack of systematic education, and of early association with the cultured world. Benzler takes Bode’s work as a foundation and rewrites. Some of his changes are distinctly advantageous, and that so few of these errors in Bode’s translation were noted by contemporary critics is a proof of their ignorance of the original, or their utter confidence in Bode.[22] Benzler in his preface of justification enumerates several extraordinary blunders[23] and then concludes with a rather inconsistent parting thrust at Bode, the perpetrator of such nonsense, at the critics who could overlook such errors and praise the work inordinately, and at the public who ventured to speak with delight of the work, knowing it only in such a rendering. Benzler was severely taken to task in the Neue Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek[24] for his shamelessness in rewriting Bode’s translation with such comparatively insignificant alterations, for printing on the title page in brazen effrontery “newly translated into German,” and for berating Bode for his failure after cursing him with condescension. Passages are cited to demonstrate the comparative triviality of Benzler’s work. A brief comparison of the two translations shows that Benzler often translates more correctly than his predecessor, but still more often makes meaningless alterations in word-order, or in trifling words where nothing is to be gained by such a change.
The same year Benzler issued a similar revision of the Sentimental Journey,[25] printing again on the title page “newly translated into German.” The Neue Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek[26] greets this attempt with a similar tart review, containing parallel quotations as before, proving Benzler’s inconsiderate presumption. Here Benzler had to face Bode’s assertion that both Lessing and Ebert had assisted in the work, and that the former had in his kindness gone through the whole book. Benzler treats this fact rather cavalierly and renews his attack on Bode’s rendering. Benzler resented this review and replied to it in a later number of the same periodical.[27]
Now that a century and more has elapsed, and personal acrimony can no longer play any part in criticism, one may justly admit Benzler’s service in calling attention to inaccurate and inadequate translation, at the same time one must condemn utterly his manner of issuing his emendations. In 1831 there appeared a translation of Tristram Shandy which was again but a revision of Bode’s work. It bore on the title page “Neu übertragen von W. H.,” and contained a sketch of Sterne’s life.[28]
In the nineties there seemed to be a renewal of Yorick enthusiasm, and at this time was brought forth, at Halle in 1794, a profusely annotated edition of the Sentimental Journey,[29] which was, according to the anonymous editor, a book not to be read, but to be studied. Claim is made that the real meaning of the book may be discovered only after several careful readings, that “empfindsam” in some measure was here used in the sense of philosophical, that the book should be treated as a work of philosophy, though clad in pleasing garb; that it should be thought out according to its merits, not merely read. Yorick’s failure to supply his chapters with any significant or alluring chapter-headings (probably the result of indolence on his part) is here interpreted as extraordinary sagacity, for he thereby lessens the expectations and heightens the effect. “Eine Empfindungs-reise” is declared to be a more suitable name than “Empfindsame Reise,” and comment is made upon the purpose of the Journey, the gathering of material for anatomical study of the human heart. The notes are numerous and lengthy, constituting a quarter to a third of the book, but are replete with padding, pointless babble and occasional puerile inaccuracies. They are largely attempts to explain and to moralize upon Yorick’s emotions,—a verbose, childish, witless commentary. The Wortregister contains fourteen pages in double columns of explanations, in general differing very little from the kind of information given in the notes. The Allgemeine Litteratur Zeitung[30] devotes a long review chiefly to the explanation of the errors in this volume, not the least striking of which is the explanation of the reference to Smelfungus, whom everyone knows to have been Smollett: “This learned Smelfungus appears to have written nothing but the Journey which is here mentioned.”[31] As an explanation of the initial “H” used by Sterne for Hume, the note is given, “The author ‘H’ was perhaps a poor one.”[32]
Sterne’s letters were issued first in London in 1775, a rather surprisingly long time after his death, when one considers how great was Yorick’s following. According to the prefatory note of Lydia Sterne de Medalle in the collection which she edited and published, it was the wish of Mrs. Sterne that the correspondence of her husband, which was in her possession, be not given to the world, unless other letters bearing his name should be published. This hesitation on her part must be interpreted in such a way as to cast a favorable light on this much maligned gentlewoman, as a delicate reticence on her part, a desire to retain these personal documents for herself.[33] The power of this sentiment must be measured by her refraining from publishing during the five years which intervened between her husband’s death and her own, March, 1768 to January, 1773—years which were embittered by the distress of straitened circumstances. It will be remembered that an effort was made by Mrs. Sterne and her daughter to retrieve their fortunes by a life of Sterne which was to be a collaboration by Stevenson and Wilkes, and urgent indeed was Lydia Sterne’s appeal to these friends of her father to fulfill their promises and lend their aid. Even when this hope had to be abandoned early in 1770, through the faithlessness of Sterne’s erstwhile companions, the widow and daughter turned to other possibilities rather than to the correspondence, though in the latter lay a more assured means of accomplishing a temporary revival of their prosperity. This is an evidence of fine feeling on the part of Sterne’s widow, with which she has never been duly credited.
But an anonymous editor published early in 1775[34] a volume entitled “Letters from Yorick to Eliza,” a brief little collection, the source of which has never been clear, but whose genuineness has never been questioned. The editor himself waives all claim to proof “which might be drawn concerning their authenticity from the character of the gentleman who had the perusal of them, and with Eliza’s permission, faithfully copied them at Bombay.”
In July of this same year[35] was published a volume entitled “Sterne’s Letters to His Friends on Various Occasions, to which is added his History of a Watchcoat with Explanatory Notes,” containing twelve letters (one by Dr. Eustace) and the watchcoat story. Some of these letters had appeared previously in British magazines, and one, copied from the London Magazine, was translated in the Wandsbecker Bothe for April 16, 1774.[36] A translation of the same letter was given in the Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitungen, 1774, pp. 286–7. Three of these letters only are accepted by Prof. Saintsbury (Nos. 7, 124, the letter of Dr. Eustace, and 125). Of the others, Nos. 4–11 have been judged as of doubtful authenticity. Two of them, Nos. 11 and 12 (“I beheld her tender look” and “I feel the weight of obligation”) are in the standard ten-volume edition of Sterne,[37] but the last letter is probably spurious also.