Notwithstanding what I have said about haste, I fear that haste has played me a trick here and there. The fact is--we are in dread of three simultaneous translations of Walladmor from three different publishers: and you will hardly believe how much the anxiety lest another translation should get the start of us can shake the stoutest of translating hearts. The names of Lindau--Methusalem Müller--Dr. Spieker--Von Halem--and Loz[[2]] sound awfully in the ears of us gentlemen of the trade. And now, alas! as many more are crowding into this Quinquevirate.
Should it happen that the recent versions of your works had not entirely satisfied your judgment, and that mine of Walladmor had,--I would in that case esteem myself greatly flattered by your again sending me through the house of B---- a copy of the manuscript of your next romance; in provision for which case I do here by anticipation acknowledge my obligations to you; and in due form of law bind myself over:
1. To the making good all expenses of "copy," &c.;
2. To the translation of both prose and verse according to the best of my poor abilities; that your eminent name may not fall into discredit through the translator's incompetence;
3. To all possible affection, friendship, respect, &c. in so far as you yourself shall be pleased to accept of any or all of these from
The German Translator of Walladmor.
FOOTNOTES TO "GERMAN DEDICATION":
[[1]] Oh! spirit of modern scepticism, to what shocking results art thou leading us! Already have Lycurgus, Romulus, Numa, &c. been resolved into mere allegorized ideas. And a learned friend has undertaken to prove, within the next 50 years, according to the best rules of modern scepsis, that no such banker as Mr. Rothschild ever existed; that the word Rothschild in fact was nothing more than a symbolic expression for a habit of advancing loans at the beginning of the 19th century: which indeed the word itself indicates, if reduced to its roots. I should not be surprized to hear that some man had undertaken to demonstrate the non-existence of Sir Walter Scott: already there are symptoms abroad: for the mysterious author of Waverley has in our own days been detected in the persons of so many poets and historians the most opposite to each other, that by this time his personality must have been evaporated and volatilized into a whole synod of men.--Note of the Dedicator.
[[2]] Names of persons who have translated one or more of Sir Walter Scott's novels into German.