acred
writer endeavours to convey. These are its greatest, and, it may perhaps
be said, its only defects; for if a regard for truth compel me to state
that the style of the translation frequently sinks far below the original
when at its lowest grade, that same regard compels me to say that in yet
more instances it rises with the same [to a degree] which I believe it is
scarcely possible for any individual with the limited powers of
uninspired man to surpass. This soaring tendency is particularly
observable in the version of the Book of Job, which is certainly the most
beautiful, is believed by many to be the most ancient, and is confessedly
one of the most important portions of the Old Testament. I consider
myself in some degree entitled to speak particularly of this part of the
Mandchou version in question, having frequently at the time I was engaged
upon it translated into English several of the chapters which
particularly struck me, for the purpose of exhibiting them to Mr. Swan,
who invariably sympathised with my admiration. The translation of most
of the writings of the prophets, as far as Puerot went, has been executed
in the same masterly manner, and it is only to be lamented that, instead
of wasting much of his time and talents upon the Apocryphal writings, as
is unfortunately the case, the ex-Jesuit left behind him no Mandchou
version of Isaiah and the Psalms, the lack of which will be sensibly felt
whenever his work shall be put in a printed state into the hands of those
for whose benefit it is intended, an event most devoutly to be wished for
by all those who would fain see Christ reign triumphant in that most
extraordinary country of which the Mandchou constitutes one of the
principal languages, being used in diplomacy and at court, and being
particularly remarkable for possessing within it translations of all the
masterpieces of Chinese, Tibetian, and Brahmanic literature with which it
has been enriched since the period of the accession of the present Tartar
dynasty to the Chinese throne, the proper language of which dynasty it is
well known to be.

To translate literally, or even closely, according to the common
acceptation of the term, into the Mandchou language is of all
impossibilities the greatest; partly from the grammatical structure of
the language, and partly from the abundance of its idioms. The Mandchou
is the only one of any of the civilised languages of the world with which
the writer of t