scovered, will
prove in the highest degree entertaining. With this I may leave the
letters to speak for themselves.

(1)

"45 Doughty Street,"
"September 25th, 1837."

"MY DEAR MADAM,--It is true that when granting the required permission
to translate _Pickwick_ into French, I allowed also the license you
claimed for yourself and your _collaborateur_--of adapting rather
than translating, and of presenting my hero under such small disguise
as might commend him better to a Gallic audience. But I am bound to
say that--to judge only from the first half of your version, which is
all that has reached me--you have construed this permission more
freely than I desired. In fact, the parent can hardly recognise his
own child.

"Against your share in the work, Madame, I have little to urge, though
the damages you represent Mrs. Bardell as claiming--300,000 francs,
or 12,000 pounds of our money--strikes me as excessive. It is rather
(I take as my guide the difference in the handwriting) to your
_collaborateur_ that I address, through you, my remonstrances.

"I have no radical objection to his making Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle,
and Tupman members of His Majesty King Louis XIII.'s corps of
Musketeers, if he is sincerely of opinion that French taste will
applaud the departure. I even commend his slight idealisation of
Snodgrass (which, by the way, is not the name of an English
mountain), and the amorousness of Tupman (Aramis) gains--I candidly
admit--from the touch of religiosity which he gives to the character;
though I do not, as he surmises, in the course of my story, promote
Tupman to a bishopric. The development--preferable as on some points
the episcopal garb may be considered to the green velvet jacket with
a two-inch tail worn by him at Madame Chasselion's _fete champetre_--
would jar upon our Anglican prejudices. As for Winkle (Porthos), the
translation nicely hits off his love of manly exercises, while
resting his pretensions on a more solid basis of fact than appears in
the original. In the incident of the baldric, however, the imposture
underlying Mr. W.'s green shooting-coat is conveyed with sufficient
neatness.

"M. D--' has been well advised again in breaking up the character of
Sam Weller and maki