The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 13/Translation of the French Letters in this work
I DID myself the honour to write to you at the beginning of the present year, to beg you would be so good as to inform me of a particular affair, of which it behoved me to get the earliest intelligence; and yet I have no answer from you. I have only been informed that you have resigned the post you lately held, in order to go over to Ireland as secretary to lord Wharton. I wish you joy upon this event, presuming that the latter employ is preferable to the former; though I am very sensible that I shall be a loser by your removal. Still I wish you all manner of satisfaction in your new office; and heartily pray that God may crown all your enterprises with success. The favour I begged of you, was to send me the family name, and titles, of my lord Halifax; and to ask himself, if you thought proper, whether he would permit me to dedicate my Livy to him. As you had signified to me by Mr. Philips, that you had forgot the sheet which I wanted in Mr. Rymer's collection, I had sent you word that it is the sheet 10 T, or the four pages immediately preceding the index of names in the first tome. If you have got it since, be so good as to send it to Messrs. Toutton and Stuiguer, carefully folded up, and directed to me. I suppose this letter will find you still at London, because it is reported that lord Wharton will not set out till toward the month of April. There is nothing new here, in the republick of letters, worth your notice. The Jesuits of Paris have passed a severe censure on father Hardouin's opinions, and obliged him to retract them in a very ignominious manner. We shall see what will be the consequence. I should be glad could I be of any service to you here; you would then see how sincerely I am, sir, your most humble and obedient servant,
TO MR. GIRALDI[2].
I TAKE the liberty to recommend to you the bearer, Mr. Howard, a learned gentleman of good family in this country, who intends to make the tour of Italy, and being a canon in my deanery, and professor of a college in this university, would fain be confirmed in his heresy by travelling among catholicks. And after all, sir, it is but just that since you have borrowed our English frankness and sincerity to ingraft on your Italian politeness, some of us tramon tanes should make reprisals on you by travelling. You will also permit me to beg you will be so kind as to present my most humble duty to his royal highness the grand duke.
With regard to myself, I will be so free as to tell you, that two months before the queen's decease, finding that it was impossible to reconcile my friends of the ministry, I retired to a country house in Berkshire; from whence, after that melancholy event, I came over to Ireland, where I now reside upon my deanery, and with christian resignation wait for the destruction of our cause and of my friends, which the reigning faction are daily contriving. For these gentlemen are absolutely determined to strike off half a dozen heads of the best men in England, whom you intimately knew and esteemed. God knows what will be the consequence. For my part, I have bid adieu to politicks, and with the good leave of the honest men who are now in power, I shall spend the remainder of my days in my hermitage, and attend entirely to my own private affairs. Adieu, sir, and do me the justice to believe that I am, with great respect, sir, yours, &c.
I MAKE you my compliments on your perfection in the French language. It is necessary to know you long, in order to know all your accomplishments: by perpetually seeing and hearing you, new ones appear, which before were concealed. It is a reproach to me, that I know only the Gascon and Patois in comparison of you. There is nothing to be objected, either as to the orthography, propriety, elegance, ease, or spirit. And what a blockhead am I to answer you in the same language, you who are incapable of any folly, unless it be the esteem that you are pleased to entertain for me; for it is no merit, nor any proof of my good taste, to find out in you all that nature has bestowed on a mortal; that is to say, honour, virtue, good sense, wit, sweetness, agreeableness, and firmness of soul; but by concealing yourself, as you do, the world knows you not, and you lose the eulogy of millions. Ever since I have had the honour of knowing you, I have always remarked, that neither in private, nor in general conversation, has one word ever escaped you, which could be better expressed. And I protest, that after making frequently the most severe criticisms, I never have been able to find the least fault, either in your actions, or your words. Coquetry, affectation, prudery, are imperfections which you never knew. And with all this, do you think it possible not to esteem you above the rest of humankind? What beasts in petticoats are the most excellent of those, whom I see dispersed throughout the world, in comparison of you! On seeing, on hearing them, I say a hundred times a day, speak not, look not, think not, do nothing like those wretches. What a misfortune to be the occasion of bringing down contempt on so many women; who, but for the thoughts of you, would be a little tolerable! But it is time to put an end to this trouble, and to bid you adieu. I am, and ever shall remain, with all possible respect, sincerity and esteem, yours.
FROM THE ABBÉ DES FONTAINES[4].
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.
SIR,
IT is above a month since I received your letter of the 4th of July; but the copy of the second edition of your translation is not yet come to hand. I have read the preface to the first; and give me leave to tell you, that I was very much surprised to find, that at the same time you mentioned the country in which I was born, you also took notice of me by name, as the author of that book, though I have had the misfortune of incurring the displeasure of some of our ministers by it, and never acknowledged it as mine. Your behaviour however, in this respect, though somewhat exceptionable, shall not prevent me from doing you justice. The generality of translators are very lavish of their praises on such works as they undertake to render into their own language, imagining perhaps that their reputation depends in some measure on that of the authors, whom they have thought proper to translate. But you were sensible of your own abilities, which rendered all such precautions needless. Capable of mending a bad book, an enterprise more difficult than to write a good one, you have ventured to publish the translation of a work, which you affirm to abound with nonsense, puerilities, &c. We think with you, that nations do not always agree in taste; but are inclined to believe, that good taste is the same, where-ever there are men of wit, judgment, and learning. Therefore, if the travels of Gulliver are calculated only for the British islands, that voyager must certainly be reckoned a paltry writer. The same vices and follies prevail in all countries, at least in all the civilized parts of Europe: and an author, who would sit down to write only for a single town, a province, a kingdom, or even a century, so far from deserving to be translated, does not deserve to be read.
This Gulliver's adherents, who are very numerous here, maintain that his book will last as long as our language, because he does not derive his merit from certain modes of expression or thought, but from a series of observations on the imperfections, follies and vices of mankind.
You may very well judge, that the people I have been speaking of do not approve of your criticisms; and you will doubtless be surprised, when I inform you, that they regard this sea surgeon as a grave author, who never departs from his character, and who uses no foreign embellishment, never pretends to set up for a wit, but is satisfied with giving the publick a plain and simple narrative of the adventures that befel him, and of the things he saw and heard in the course of his voyages.
With regard ro the article relating to lord Carteret, without waiting for any information whence you borrowed your intelligence, I shall take the liberty to tell you, that you have written only one half of the truth; and that this real, or supposed drapier, has saved Ireland, by spiriting up the whole nation to oppose a project, by which a certain number of individuals would have been enriched at the publick expense.
A series of accidents have intervened, which will prevent my going to France at present, and I am now too old to hope for any future opportunity. I am sensible that this is a great loss to me. The only consolation that remains, is to think that I shall be the better able to bear that spot of ground, to which fortune has condemned me. I am, &c.
FROM LADY BOLINGBROKE[6].
I HAVE been told, sir, that you complain of having received no letters from me. You do me wrong: I treat you as one of the deities, who keep an account with mankind of their intentions. It is about ten years since I proposed writing to you; before I had the honour of knowing you, the idea, which I had formed of your gravity, restrained me: since I have had the honour of seeing you, I never could find spirit enough to venture upon it. A certain gentleman, named Gulliver, had put this poor imagination of mine, which is so depressed by the air of London, and by conversations of which I know only the sound, a little in motion; I was desirous of seizing the moment, in order to write to you, but I fell ill, and have been so perpetually for these three months. I avail myself, therefore, sir, of the first return of my health, to thank you for your reproaches, which I am very proud of, and to say a word to you concerning my friend Gulliver. I learn, with great satisfaction, that he has just been translated into French; and as my residence in England has considerably increased my love for my own country and its inhabitants, I am delighted that they now can participate in the pleasure which that good gentleman has given me, and that they can profit by his discoveries. I am not without hopes, that the twelve ships, which France has just fitted out, may be destined for an embassy to the nation of the Houyhnhnms. In that case I would propose to you, that we should make the voyage together. In the mean time I am pleased with a workman of your country, who, in order to furnish the ladies with fans, which you know, sir, are much used here, has made some, wherein all the adventures of your faithful traveller are represented. You may easily judge what a share he will have in their conversation. This, indeed, will be of great prejudice to the rain and fine weather, which filled up a part of it; and as to myself in particular, I shall be deprived of the words very cold and very warm, the few expressions I understand. I reckon to send you some of those fans by one of your friends. You may make a merit of them with your Irish ladies, if you have any occasion for them; which I imagine you have not, at least if they think like the French ladies. His lordship of Dawley, Mr. Pope and myself, are taken up here in drinking, eating, sleeping, or doing nothing, except praying to God for your welfare. Return this spring to see us; my lord expects your coming with impatience, that he may kill the weightiest ox, and the largest hog, on my farm: both shall be served up whole on your reverence's table, for fear that my cook should in any manner disguise them. You will shine among us at least as much as among your own prebends, and we shall be no less solicitous to please you. I will dispute that point with every body, being, of all persons living, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant.
- ↑ See the original, vol. XI, p. 60.
- ↑ Mr. Giraldi was secretary to the duke of Tuscany. See the original, vol. XI, p. 433.
- ↑ See the original, vol. XII, p. 24.
- ↑ See the original, vol. XII, p. 151.
- ↑ See the original, vol. XII, p. 153.
- ↑ See the original, vol. XII, p. 219.
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.
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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 |
