into another, know that this will sometimes happen even in an easy
passage. A difficult passage attracts more than usual of a translator's
attention, and if he fails there, it is either because the difficulty
cannot be overcome, or because he cannot overcome it. Mere inadvertence
or sleepiness may sometimes cause a translator to blunder, when he would
not have blundered if any friend had been by to keep him awake.

The best thing that a man can do to avoid these and other errors is to
compare his translation, when he has finished it, with some other. The
translation which I have compared with mine is the German translation of
Kaltwasser, Magdeburg, 1799, which is generally correct. Kaltwasser in
his Preface speaks of the way in which he used the German translations
of two of his predecessors, J. Christopher Kind, Leipzig, 1745-1754, and
H. v. Schirach, 1776-1780, and some others. He says, "These two
translations, with the French translations above mentioned, I have duly
used, for it is the duty of a translator to compare himself with his
predecessors; but I lay my labour before the eyes of the public, without
fearing that I shall be accused of copying or of close imitation. First
of all, I carefully studied the text of my author and translated him as
well as I could: then, and not before, I compared the labour of my
predecessors, and where I found a more suitable expression or a happier
turn, I made use of it without hesitation. In this way, every fault,
every deviation of the old translators must be apparent; the most
striking of them I have remarked on in the notes, but I have more
frequently amended such things silently, as a comparison will show the
reader." The translator has not compared his version with any English
version. The translation of North, which has great merit in point of
expression, is a version of Amyot's French version, from which, however,
it differs in some passages, where it is decidedly wrong and Amyot's
version is right. Indeed, it is surprising to find how correct this old