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PRINCIPLES OF
Chap. XII.
CHAP. XII.
Difficulty of translating Don Quixote, from its idiomatic Phraseology.—Of the best Translations of that Novel.—Comparison of the Translation by Motteux with that by Smollet.
There is perhaps no book to which it is more difficult to do perfect justice in a translation than the Don Quixote of Cervantes. This difficulty arises from the extreme frequency of its idiomatic phrases. As the Spanish language is in itself highly idiomatical, even the narra-tive
