Dear Kipling,
The body, if not the soul, of this little book is due to the
labours of an intelligent Frenchman who discovered sixty or
seventy years ago that the degenerate practice of introducing
young people to the Latin language by means of Cæsar, Cicero,
and Vergil failed to engage their interest. The fact has since
been rediscovered by persons so eminent, and has been proclaimed
with such energy and unaffected ingenuousness, that I do not
mind confessing that I have myself long had something more than
a suspicion of it.
Goffeaux thought it worth while to write some of the adventures
of Robinson Crusoe in Latin, in order that boys who already knew
something of the original enchanting history might realise that
it was possible to express in that language matters about which
a reasonable being might reasonably be interested. His book had
considerable vogue ; and after four or five editions had been
printed in France, it was printed and reprinted in this country,
with English notes.
When a copy of Goffeaux's book came into my way through the kind
offices of a friend, I wondered whether it could have exhausted
its usefulness in our grandfathers’ time ; whether our children
might not get some profit out of it. My Frenchman has, in my
hands, been cut down a good deal ; his Latin has been mended ;
not less than half of his moral sentiments have been
suppressed ; and the result is now offered to the boys and girls
of England for what it is worth.
You are in the direct line of great story-tellers, of whom Defoe
was greatest in his day ; and I have placed your name in front
of my wares because I desire above all things to commend, and
make easier to young people, the reading of Latin as literature.
I do not call my Goffeaux by that sacred name ; but a healthy
boy who is piqued into following Crusoe through a language which
Cicero and Cæesar and Vergil (in spite of their imperfect
education), would have understood, will the more readily believe
that they themselves are better worth reading. And he will
assuredly read them the more easily after reading Goffeaux.
I might have begged, I dare say in vain, for the patronage of
the professed scholar. I should like to have it ; but I am more
concerned to secure yours because whereas Latin literature will
not live as an interest of youth — or of old age, for that
matter — by reason of its philological or rhetorical or
scientific interest, it will live because people love it.
It is unfortunate that Cæsar and Vergil and Cicero neglected to
write Latin books for the use of English children. Yet, if we
are to present such things in any form which young English
people will willingly accept, we must temper the forbidding but
necessary Grammar that hedges round the great masterpieces of
those great writers with something not quite so austere, at all
events superficially. Such fine scholars as Professor
Sonnenschein and Mr. Godley have, indeed, led the way — I do not
know how people ever got on without “ The New Orbilius ” and
“ Ora Maritima ” — and I plead that, after them, Goffeaux may
have his chance.
It is true that his style is not classical, nor could all the
botching of an even learned editor make it so. It lacks periodic
consecutiveness ; its constructions are mostly the simple
ordinary constructions ; it does not affect the delicate shades
that make native Latin so subtle an instrument of logic and
narrative. But for these very reasons it is better fitted for
the purpose proposed. And, at any rate, it contains a large
vocabulary (a few words, to be sure, invented), which the
intelligent boy and girl can pick up as they go along. They can
avoid the “ more flagrant forms of guessing, ” against which an
eminent friend of your own was solemnly warned, by an occasional
use of the dictionary and a glance at the few appended notes.
I hope you will not think this an insufficient apology for my
doubly presumptuous effort and dedication.