Qu’il m’arrivât pareille histoire.”
These specimens are sufficient to shew how completely this translator has entered into the spirit of his original, and has thus succeeded in conveying a very perfect idea to his countrymen of one of those works which are most strongly tinctured with the peculiarities of national character, and which therefore required a singular coincidence of the talents of the translator with those of the original author.
If the English can boast of any parallel to this, in a version from the French, where the translator has given equal proof of a kindred genius to that of his original, and has as successfully accomplished a task of equal difficulty, it is in the translation of Rabelais, begun by Sir Thomas Urquhart, and finished by Mr. Motteux, and lastly, revised and corrected by Mr. Ozell. The difficulty of translating this work, arises less from its obsolete style, than from a phraseology peculiar to the author, which he seems to have purposely rendered obscure, in order to conceal that satire which he levels both against the civil government and the ecclesiastical policy of his country. Such is the studied obscurity of this satire, that but a very few of the most learned and acute among his own countrymen have professed to understand Rabelais in the original. The history of the English translation of this work, is in itself a proof of its very high merit. The three first books were translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart, but only two of them were published in his lifetime. Mr. Motteux, a Frenchman by birth, but whose long residence in England had given him an equal command of both languages, republished the work of Urquhart, and added the remaining three books translated by himself. In this publication he allows the excellence of the work of his predecessor, whom he declares to have been a complete master of the French language, and to have possessed both learning and fancy equal to the task he undertook. He adds, that he has preserved in his translation “the very style and air of his original;” and finally, “that the English readers may now understand that author better in their own tongue, than many of the French can do in theirs.” The work thus completed in English, was taken up by Mr. Ozell, a person of considerable literary abilities, and who possessed an uncommon knowledge both of the ancient and modern languages. Of the merits of the translation, none could be a better judge, and to these he has given the strongest testimony, by adopting it entirely in his new edition, and limiting his own undertaking solely to the correction of the text of Urquhart and Motteux, to which he has added a translation of the notes of M. Du Chat, who spent, as Mr. Ozell informs us, forty years in composing annotations on the original work. The English version of Rabelais thus improved, may be considered, in its present form, as one of the most perfect specimens of the art of translation. The best critics in both languages have borne testimony to its faithful transfusion of the sense, and happy imitation of the style of the original; and every English reader will acknowledge, that it possesses all the ease of original composition. If I have forborne to illustrate any of the rules or precepts of the preceding Essay from this work, my reasons were, that obscurity I have already noticed, which rendered it less fit for the purpose of such illustration, and that strong tincture of licentiousness which characterises the whole work.
APPENDIX
No. I
Stanzas from Tickell’s Ballad of Colin and Lucy
Translated by Le Mierre
Cheres compagnes, je vous laisse;
Une voix semble m’apeller,