Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin. Portraits of the eighteenth century, historic and literary; tr. by Katharine P. Wormeley, with a critical introd. by Edmond Scherer. 2v. ea. **$2.50. Putnam.
Miss Wormeley has not only translated but edited these Sainte-Beuve essays in a manner to insure their popularity. There are portraits of such historic and literary personages as the Duchess du Maine, Le Sage, Montesquieu, Voltaire, the Earl of Chesterfield, Louis XV, Marie Antoinette, Frederic the Great, Necker, Mme. de Lambert, Grimm, Rousseau, Goethe, Prevost, Beaumarchais, Adrienne Lecouvreur and others.
“It would certainly be impossible to mistake them for anything but translations, and translations of a rather literal order.”
+ Ath. 1906, 1: 223. F. 24. 250w. + Critic. 47: 574. D. ’05. 60w. Critic. 48: 379. Ap. ’06. 130w. Critic. 49: 282. S. ’06. 90w.
“For delicacy, good taste, profundity of research, and brilliancy of finish, his work remains unique, and well deserves the tribute of adequate translation and sumptuous publication now being rendered it.”
+ + Dial. 40: 130. F. 16, ’06. 280w. + Ind. 60: 49. Ja. 4, ’06. 100w.
“For the most part accurately rendered, and disposed in such fashion as to convey a general impression of the interesting pre-Revolutionary epoch.”
+ + – Nation. 82: 10. Ja. 4, ’06. 110w. + N. Y. Times. 10: 836. D. 2, ’05. 220w.
“The translation by Katharine P. Wormeley is all that could be asked in sympathy, exactness and choice of phrase.”