A French translation, by M. B. de S., in three volumes 12mo., was published in 1820, and another by M. le Chevalier ⸺ in one volume 8vo., 1821. Both are in prose.
When the latest of these versions was nearly ready for publication, the publisher, who was also the printer, insisted upon having a life of the author prefixed. The French public, he said, knew nothing of M. Southey, and in order to make the book sell, it must be managed to interest them for the writer. The Chevalier represented as a conclusive reason for not attempting any thing of the kind, that he was not acquainted with M. Southey’s private history. “Would you believe it?” says a friend of the translator’s, from whose letter I transscribe what follows; “this was his answer verbatim: ‘N’importe, écrivez toujours; brodez, brodez-la un peu; que ce soit vrai ou non ce ne fait rien; qui prendra la peine de s’informer?’” Accordingly a Notice sur M. Southey was composed, not exactly in conformity with the publisher’s notions of biography, but from such materials as could be collected from magazines and other equally unauthentic sources.
In one of these versions a notable mistake occurs, occasioned by the French pronunciation of an English word. The whole passage indeed, in both versions, may be regarded as curiously exemplifying the difference between French and English poetry.
“The lamps and tapers now grew pale,
And through the eastern windows slanting fell
The roseate ray of morn. Within those walls
Returning day restored no cheerful sounds
Or joyous motions of awakening life;
But in the stream of light the speckled motes
As if in mimicry of insect play,