general idea of the meaning and plan of the author. To be
practically serviceable, an English version of any classical or
foreign work should be literal, and with the literalness as idiomatic
as may be; and if the text to be rendered is in verse, the English
equivalent should preferably be in verse without rhyme or in prose.
The object to be attained in these cases is a transfer of the
conceptions, notions, or theories of writers from languages which we
do not understand to one which we do; and therefore the best
translator is he who has absolutely no higher aim than this, and does
not aspire to make his task a stalking-horse for his own literary
ambition.

There is scarcely an end of the various schemes adopted to convey to
us intelligibly and successfully the sentiments and conceits of
ancient authors as well as of those of other countries, and, all
things considered, a _literal_ version in prose appears to present the
fewest disadvantages, for it disarms the translator of the temptation
to poetical flights and metrical ingenuity, and brings us nearer to
the man and the age to be immediately and primarily studied.

At best, a translation is an indifferent substitute for the book
itself, as it was delivered to the world by some renowned hand, or
even by some personage whose individuality is stamped, as in the case
of the _Imitatio Christi_ or the _Essays_ of Montaigne, on every
sentence indelibly and untransferably, and seems part of the very
Latin or French type. An amusing instance occurred in which a
gentleman, having heard of the fine style of A Kempis, bought as a
present to a friend a copy of the latest English translation! And it
is equally futile to look for the essence and spirit of the great
Gascon writer in the pages of Florio or Cotton, both of whom, though
in unequal measure, to the exigencies of diction or an imperfect
conversance with the dialect in which Montaigne wrote sacrificed
precious personal idiosyncrasies.

The majority of the popular and current versions of the classics are
unsatisfying and treacherous, because they have been executed either
by under-paid scholars, like Bohn's Series, or by persons who have had
a tendency to put themselves in the place of their author.

We may not be very willing to part with our old favourites, such as
Chapman's _Homer_, Florio's _Montaigne_, North's _Plutarch_, Shelton's
_Don Quixote_, Urquhart's _Rabelais_, and Smollett's _Gil Blas_; but
it is to be fe