best in Danish or Swedish. It is a grateful task, therefore, to call
attention to the translations by Christen Collin. They are not
numerous--only eleven short fragments published as illustrative material
in his school edition (English text) of _The Merchant of Venice_--[22]
but they are of notable quality, and they save the Riksmaal literature
from the reproach of surrendering completely to the Landsmaal the task
of turning Shakespeare into Norwegian. With the exception of a few lines
from _Macbeth_ and _Othello_, the selections are all from _The Merchant
of Venice_.

[22. _The Merchant of Venice_. Med Indledning og Anmærkninger ved
Christen Collin. Kristiania. 1902. (This, of course, does not
include the translations of the sonnets referred to below.)]

A good part of Collin's success must be attributed to his intimate
familiarity with English. The fine nuances of the language do not escape
him, and he can use it not with precision merely but with audacity and
power. Long years of close and sympathetic association with the
literature of England has made English well-nigh a second mother tongue
to this fine and appreciative critic. But he is more than a critic. He
has more than a little of the true poet's insight and the true poet's
gift of song. All this has combined to give us a body of translations
which, for fine felicity, stand unrivalled in Dano-Norwegian. Many of
these have been prepared for lecture purposes and have never been
printed.[23] Only a few have been perpetuated in this text edition of
_The Merchant of Venice_. We shall discuss the edition itself below.
Our concern here is with the translations. We remember Lassen's and
Lembcke's opening of the fifth act. Collin is more successful than his
countryman.