do to avoid these and other errors is to
compare his translation, when he has finished it, with some other. The
translation which I have compared with mine is the German translation of
Kaltwasser, Magdeburg, 1799, which is generally correct. Kaltwasser in
his Preface speaks of the way in which he used the German translations
of two of his predecessors, J. Christopher Kind, Leipzig, 1745-1754, and
H. v. Schirach, 1776-1780, and some others. He says, "These two
translations, with the French translations above mentioned, I have duly
used, for it is the duty of a translator to compare himself with his
predecessors; but I lay my labour before the eyes of the public, without
fearing that I shall be accused of copying or of close imitation. First
of all, I carefully studied the text of my author and translated him as
well as I could: then, and not before, I compared the labour of my
predecessors, and where I found a more suitable expression or a happier
turn, I made use of it without hesitation. In this way, every fault,
every deviation of the old translators must be apparent; the most
striking of them I have remarked on in the notes, but I have more
frequently amended such things silently, as a comparison will show the
reader." The translator has not compared his version with any English
version. The translation of North, which has great merit in point of
expression, is a version of Amyot's French version, from which, however,
it differs in some passages, where it is decidedly wrong and Amyot's
version is right. Indeed, it is surprising to find how correct this old
French translation generally is. The translation of 'Plutarch's Lives
from the Greek by several hands,' was published at London in 1683-86. It
was dedicated by Dryden to James Butler, the first Duke of Ormond, in a
fulsome panegyric. It is said that forty-one translators laboured at the
work. Dryden did not translate any of the Lives; but he wrote the Life
of Plutarch which is prefixed to this translation. The advertisement
prefixed to the translation passes under the name and character of the
bookseller (Jacob Tonson), but, as Malone observes, it may from internal
evidence be safely attributed to Dryden. The bookseller says, "You have
here the first volume of Plutarch's Lives turned from the Greek into
English; and give me leave to say, the first attempt of doing it from
the _originals_." This is aimed at North's version, of which Dryden
remarks in his Life of Pluta