Smollet inherited from nature a strong sense of ridicule, a great fund of original humour, and a happy versatility of talent, by which he could accommodate his style to almost every species of writing. He could adopt alternately the solemn, the lively, the sarcastic, the burlesque, and the vulgar. To these qualifications he joined an inventive genius, and a vigorous imagination. As he possessed talents equal to the composition of original works of the same species with the romance of Cervantes; so it is not perhaps possible to conceive a writer more completely qualified to give a perfect translation of that romance.
Motteux, with no great abilities as an original writer, appears to me to have been endowed with a strong perception of the ridiculous in human character; a just discernment of the weaknesses and follies of mankind. He seems likewise to have had a great command of the various styles which are accommodated to the expression both of grave burlesque, and of low humour. Inferior to Smollet in inventive genius, he seems to have equalled him in every quality which was essentially requisite to a translator of Don Quixote. It may therefore be supposed, that the contest between them will be nearly equal, and the question of preference very difficult to be decided. It would have been so, had Smollet confided in his own strength, and bestowed on his task that time and labour which the length and difficulty of the work required: but Smollet too often wrote in such circumstances, that dispatch was his primary object. He found various English translations at hand, which he judged might save him the labour of a new composition. Jarvis could give him faithfully the sense of his author; and it was necessary, only to polish his asperities, and lighten his heavy and aukward phraseology. To contend with Motteux, Smollet found it necessary to assume the armour of Jarvis. This author had purposely avoided, through the whole of his work, the smallest coincidence of expression with Motteux, whom, with equal presumption and injustice, he accuses in his preface of having “taken his version wholly from the French.”[58] We find, therefore, both in the translation of Jarvis and in that of Smollet, which is little else than an improved edition of the former, that there is a studied rejection of the phraseology of Motteux. Now, Motteux, though he has frequently assumed too great a licence, both in adding to and retrenching from the ideas of his original, has upon the whole a very high degree of merit as a translator. In the adoption of corresponding idioms he has been eminently fortunate, and, as in these there is no great latitude, he has in general preoccupied the appropriated phrases; so that a succeeding translator, who proceeded on the rule of invariably rejecting his phraseology, must have, in general, altered for the worse. Such, I have said, was the rule laid down by Jarvis, and by his copyist and improver, Smollet, who by thus absurdly rejecting what his own judgement and taste must have approved, has produced a composition decidedly inferior, on the whole, to that of Motteux. While I justify the opinion I have now given, by comparing several passages of both translations, I shall readily allow full credit to the performance of Smollet, wherever I find that there is a real superiority to the work of his rival translator.
After Don Quixote’s unfortunate encounter with the Yanguesian carriers, in which the Knight, Sancho, and Rozinante, were all most grievously mauled, his faithful squire lays his master across his ass, and conducts him to the nearest inn, where a miserable bed is made up for him in a cock-loft. Cervantes then proceeds as follows:
En esta maldita cama se accostó Don Quixote: y luego la ventera y su hija le emplastáron de arriba abaxo, alumbrandoles Maritornes: que asi se llamaba la Asturiana. Y como al vizmalle, viese la ventera tan acardenalado á partes á Don Quixote, dixo que aquello mas parecian golpes que caida. No fuéron golpes, dixo Sancho, sino que la peña tenia muchos picos y tropezones, y que cada uno habia hecho su cardinal, y tambien le dixo: haga vuestra merced, señora, de manera que queden algunas estopas, que no faltará quien las haya menester, que tambien me duelen á mí un poco los lomos. Desa manera, respondió la ventera, tambien debistes vos de caer? No caí, dico Sancho Panza, sino que del sobresalto que tome de ver caer á mí amo, de tal manera me duele á mí el cuerpo, que me parece que me han dado mil palos.
Translation by Motteux
“In this ungracious bed was the Knight laid to rest his belaboured carcase; and presently the hostess and her daughter anointed and plastered him all over, while Maritornes (for that was the name of the Asturian wench) held the candle. The hostess, while she greased him, wondering to see him so bruised all over, I fancy, said she, those bumps look much more like a dry beating than a fall. ’Twas no dry beating, mistress, I promise you, quoth Sancho; but the rock had I know not how many cragged ends and knobs, and every one of them gave my master a token of its kindness. And by the way, forsooth, continued he, I beseech you save a little of that same tow and ointment for me too, for I don’t know what’s the matter with my back, but I fancy I stand mainly in want of a little greasing too. What, I suppose you fell too, quoth the landlady. Not I, quoth Sancho, but the very fright that I took to see my master tumble down the rock, has so wrought upon my body, that I am as sore as if I had been sadly mauled.”
Translation by Smollet
“In this wretched bed Don Quixote having laid himself down, was anointed from head to foot by the good woman and her daughter, while Maritornes (that was the Asturian’s name) stood hard by, holding a light. The landlady, in the course of her application, perceiving the Knight’s whole body black and blue, observed, that those marks seemed rather the effects of drubbing than of a fall; but Sancho affirmed she was mistaken, and that the marks in question were occasioned by the knobs and corners of the rocks among which he fell. And now, I think of it, said he, pray, Madam, manage matters so as to leave a little of your ointment, for it will be needed, I’ll assure you: my own loins are none of the soundest at present. What, did you fall too, said she? I can’t say I did, answered the squire; but I was so infected by seeing my master tumble, that my whole body akes, as much as if I had been cudgelled without mercy.”