OCCUPATIONS--TRADUTTORE TRADITORE--ODE TO THE MIST--APPLE AND
PEAR--REVIEWING--CURRENT LITERATURE--OXFORD-LIKE MANNER--A PLAIN
STORY--ILL-REGULATED MIND--UNSNUFFED CANDLE--DREAMS
I compiled the Chronicles of Newgate; I reviewed books for the Review
established on an entirely new principle; and I occasionally tried my
best to translate into German portions of the publisher's philosophy. In
this last task I experienced more than one difficulty. I was a tolerable
German scholar, it is true, and I had long been able to translate from
German into English with considerable facility; but to translate from a
foreign language into your own is a widely different thing from
translating from your own into a foreign language; and, in my first
attempt to render the publisher into German, I was conscious of making
miserable failures, from pure ignorance of German grammar; however, by
the assistance of grammars and dictionaries, and by extreme perseverance,
I at length overcame all the difficulties connected with the German
language. But, alas! another difficulty remained, far greater than any
connected with German--a difficulty connected with the language of the
publisher--the language which the great man employed in his writings was
very hard to understand; I say in his writings--for his colloquial
English was plain enough. Though not professing to be a scholar, he was
much addicted, when writing, to the use of Greek and Latin terms, not as
other people used them, but in a manner of his own, which set the
authority of dictionaries at defiance; the consequence was that I was
sometimes utterly at a loss to understand the meaning of the publisher.
Many a quarter of an hour did I pass at this period, staring at periods
of the publisher, and wondering what he could mean, but in vain, till at
last, with a shake of the head, I would snatch up the pen, and render the
publisher literally into German. Sometimes I was almost tempted to
substitute something of my own for what the publisher had written, but my
conscience interposed; the awful words, Traduttore traditore, commenced
ringing in my ears, and I asked myself whether I should be acting
honourably towards the publisher, who had committed to me the delicate
task of translating him into German; should I be acting honourably
towards him, in making him speak in German in a manner different from
that in which he expressed himself in English? No, I could not reconcile
such conduct with any principle of honour; by substituting something of
my own in lieu of these mysterious passages of the publisher, I might be
giving a fatal blow to his whole system of philosophy. Besides, when
translating into English, had I treated foreign authors in this manner?
Had I treated the minstrels of the Kaempe Viser in this manner?--No. Had
I treated Ab Gwilym in this manner? Even when translating his Ode to the
Mist, in which he is misty enough, had I attempted to make Ab Gwilym less
misty? No; on referring to my translation, I found that Ab Gwilym in my
hands was quite as misty as in his own. Then, seeing that I had not
ventured to take liberties with people who had never put themselves into
my hands for the purpose of being rendered, how could I venture to
substitute my own thoughts and ideas for the publisher's, who had put
himself into my hands for that purpose? Forbid it every proper
feeling--so I told the Germans, in the publisher's own way, the
publisher's tale of an apple and a pear.
I at first felt much inclined to be of the publisher's opinion with
respect to the theory of the pear. After all, why should the earth be
shaped like an apple, and not like a pear?--it would certainly gain in
appearance by being shaped like a pear. A pear being a handsomer fruit
than an apple, the publisher is probably right, thought I, and I will say
that he is right on this point in the notice which I am about to write of
his publication for the Review. And yet I don't know--said I, after a
long fit of musing--I don't know but what there is more to be said for
the Oxford theory. The world may be shaped like a pear, but I don't know
that it is; but one thing I know, which is, that it does not taste like a
pear; I have always liked pears, but I don't like the world. The world
to me tastes much more like an apple, and I have never liked apples. I
will uphold the Oxford theory--besides, I am writing in an Oxford Review,
and am in duty bound to uphold the Oxford theory. So in my notice I
asserted that the world was round; I quoted Scripture, and endeavoured to
prove that the world was typified by the apple in Scripture, both as to
shape and properties. 'An apple is round,' said I, 'and the world is
round--the apple is a sour, disagreeable fruit; and who has tasted much
of the world without having his teeth set on edge?' I, however, treated
the publisher, upon the whole, in the most urbane and Oxford-like manner;
complimenting him upon his style, acknowledging the general soundness of
his views, and only differing with him in the affair of the apple and
pear.
I did not like reviewing at all--it was not to my taste; it was not in my
way; I liked it far less than translating the publisher's philosophy, for
that was something in the line of one whom a competent judge had surnamed
Lavengro. I never could understand why reviews were instituted; works of
merit do not require to be reviewed, they can speak for themselves, and
require no praising; works of no merit at all will die of themselves,
they require no killing. The Review to which I was attached was, as has
been already intimated, established on an entirely new plan; it professed
to review all new publications, which certainly no Review had ever
professed to do before, other Reviews never pretending to review more
than one-tenth of the current literature of the day. When I say it
professed to review all new publications, I should add, which should be
sent to it; for, of course, the Review would not acknowledge the
existence of publications, the authors of which did not acknowledge the
existence of the Review. I don't think, however, that the Review had
much cause to complain of being neglected; I have reason to believe that
at least nine-tenths of the publications of the day were sent to the
Review, and in due time reviewed. I had good opportunity of judging--I
was connected with several departments of the Review, though more
particularly with the poetical and philosophic ones. An English
translation of Kant's philosophy made its appearance on my table the day
before its publication. In my notice of this work I said that the
English shortly hoped to give the Germans a _quid pro quo_. I believe at
that time authors were much in the habit of publishing at their own
expense. All the poetry which I reviewed appeared to be published at the
expense of the authors. If I am asked how I comported myself, under all
circumstances, as a reviewer--I answer,--I did not forget that I was
connected with a Review established on Oxford principles, the editor of
which had translated Quintilian. All the publications which fell under
my notice I treated in a gentlemanly and Oxford-like manner, no
personalities--no vituperation--no shabby insinuations; decorum, decorum
was the order of the day. Occasionally a word of admonition, but gently
expressed, as an Oxford undergraduate might have expressed it, or master
of arts. How the authors whose publications were consigned to my
colleagues were treated by them I know not; I suppose they were treated
in an urbane and Oxford-like manner, but I cannot say; I did not read the
reviewals of my colleagues, I did not read my own after they were
printed. I did not like reviewing.
Of all my occupations at this period I am free to confess I liked that of
compiling the _Newgate Lives and Trials_ the best; that is, after I had
surmounted a kind of prejudice which I originally entertained. The
trials were entertaining enough; but the lives--how full were they of
wild and racy adventures, and in what racy, genuine language were they
told! What struck me most with respect to these lives was the art which
the writers, whoever they were, possessed of telling a plain story. It
is no easy thing to tell a story plainly and distinctly by mouth; but to
tell one on paper is difficult indeed, so many snares lie in the way.
People are afraid to put down what is common on paper, they seek to
embellish their narratives, as they think, by philosophic speculations
and reflections; they are anxious to shine, and people who are anxious to
shine can never tell a plain story. 'So I went with them to a music
booth, where they made me almost drunk with gin, and began to talk their
flash language, which I did not understand,' says, or is made to say,
Henry Simms, executed at Tyburn some seventy years before the time of
which I am speaking. I have always looked upon this sentence as a
masterpiece of the narrative style, it is so concise and yet so very
clear. As I gazed on passages like this, and there were many nearly as
good in the Newgate lives, I often sighed that it was not my fortune to
have to render these lives into German rather than the publisher's
philosophy--his tale of an apple and pear.
Mine was an ill-regulated mind at this period. As I read over the lives
of these robbers and pickpockets, strange doubts began to arise in my
mind about virtue and crime. Years before, when quite a boy, as in one
of the early chapters I have hinted, I had been a necessitarian; I had
even written an essay on crime (I have it now before me, penned in a
round boyish hand), in which I attempted to prove that there is no such
thing as crime or virtue, all our actions being the result of
circumstances or necessity. These doubts were now again reviving in my
mind; I could not, for the life of me, imagine how, taking all
circumstances into consideration, these highwaymen, these pickpockets,
should have been anything else than highwaymen and pickpockets; any more
than how, taking all circumstances into consideration, Bishop Latimer
(the reader is aware that I had read Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_) should
have been anything else than Bishop Latimer. I had a very ill-regulated
mind at that period.
My own peculiar ideas with respect to everything being a lying dream
began also to revive. Sometimes at midnight, after having toiled for
hours at my occupations, I would fling myself back on my chair, look
about the poor apartment, dimly lighted by an unsnuffed candle, or upon
the heaps of books and papers before me, and exclaim,--'Do I exist? Do
these things, which I think I see about me, exist, or do they not? Is
not everything a dream--a deceitful dream? Is not this apartment a
dream--the furniture a dream? The publisher a dream--his philosophy a
dream? Am I not myself a dream--dreaming about translating a dream? I
can't see why all should not be a dream; what's the use of the reality?'
And then I would pinch myself, and snuff the burdened smoky light. 'I
can't see, for the life of me, the use of all this; therefore why should
I think that it exists? If there was a chance, a probability, of all
this tending to anything, I might believe; but--' and then I would stare
and think, and after some time shake my head and return again to my
occupations for an hour or two; and then I would perhaps shake, and
shiver, and yawn, and look wistfully in the direction of my sleeping
apartment; and then, but not wistfully, at the papers and books before
me; and sometimes I would return to my papers and books; but oftener I
would arise, and, after another yawn and shiver, take my light, and
proceed to my sleeping chamber.
They say that light fare begets light dreams; my fare at that time was
light enough; but I had anything but light dreams, for at that period I
had all kind of strange and extravagant dreams, and amongst other things
I dreamt that the whole world had taken to dog-fighting; and that I,
myself, had taken to dog-fighting, and that in a vast circus I backed an
English bulldog against the bloodhound of the Pope of Rome.