The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 13/From l'abbé des Fontaines to Jonathan Swift - 1 (Translation)
FROM THE ABBÉ DES FONTAINES[1].
I HAVE the honour to send you the second edition of your work, which I have translated into French. I should have sent you the first, had I not been obliged, for reasons which I am not at liberty to tell you, to insert a passage in the preface, which you would not have been pleased with, and which indeed I inserted much against my inclinations. As the book has made its way without opposition, these reasons no longer subsist, and I have expunged this passage in the second edition, as you will find. I have likewise altered the passage relating to my lord Carteret, concerning which I had received false intelligence. In many parts you will easily see that my translation is not exact; but what pleases in England, has not always the same effect in France; either because our manners are different, or because the allusions and allegories, that strike people in one country, do not make the same impression in another; or, in fine, because the two nations do not always agree in taste. My intention was to present my countrymen with a book, which might be of use to them; and this has made me take some liberties in varying from the original. I have been even so free as to make some additions, according as I found my own imagination raised by yours. To you only I am indebted for the honour this translation does me; a translation that has been sold with amazing rapidity, for there have been already three editions of it. I have conceived so high an esteem for you, and so greatly am I obliged to you, that if you are not entirely satisfied with the suppression I made in this edition, I am still ready to go any farther length, in order to cancel the memory of that part of the preface: as for the rest, I beg you will pay due attention to the justice I have done you in that very preface.
We flatter ourselves that we shall soon have the honour of seeing you in this capital. All your friends are impatient for your arrival. Nothing else is talked of; and all Paris eagerly expects this agreeable event. Do not defer giving us this pleasure; you will see a nation that holds you in the highest esteem. In the mean while I claim the honour of your friendship, and beg you will be persuaded, that no one respects you more than myself; being, with the profoundest regard and esteem, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant.
- ↑ See the original, vol. XII, p. 151.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published in 1801 and is anonymous or pseudonymous due to unknown authorship. It is in the public domain in the United States as well as countries and areas where the copyright terms of anonymous or pseudonymous works are 222 years or less since publication.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
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| Translation: |
This work was published in 1801 and is anonymous or pseudonymous due to unknown authorship. It is in the public domain in the United States as well as countries and areas where the copyright terms of anonymous or pseudonymous works are 222 years or less since publication.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
