So much must be said in dispraise of what after all is a masterpiece of prose. The translator, said Dr. Johnson, “is to exhibit his author’s thoughts in such a dress as the author would have given them had his language been English.” Now, Adlington has failed, with the rest of the world, to reach this high standard. Under no conceivable circumstances could Apuleius have written in his terms and with his significance. For the perfect translation a knowledge of two languages is necessary. The modern translator is commonly endowed with a complete apprehension of Latin or Greek, and is withal lamentably ignorant of English. Adlington, on the other hand, was sadly to seek in Latin, but he more than atoned for his slender knowledge by an admirable treatment of his own language. Though he abandoned the colour and variety of Apuleius, he turned his author into as handsome a piece of prose as you are like to meet. From the first page to the last you will not find a trace of foreign idiom. The result is not so much a fine translation as a noble original, fitted to endure by its vigorous diction and excellent rhythm. The manner is perfectly adapted to narration, and there are few can handle a story with better delicacy and point. The style, if simple for its age, has all the distinction of simplicity. The cadences are a perpetual pleasure to the ear. There is a stateliness, a dignity of effect, which proves that the prose of the authorised version was no invention, but a growth. Though Adlington does not pretend to echo the locutions of Apuleius, he is, after his own method, a master of phrase, “Girded with her beautiful scarf of love”—is it not an exquisite idea? How more nearly or more adroitly would you turn tamen nisi capillum distinxerit than in these terms: “if her hair be not curiously set forth?” If only the modern translator dared to represent ementita lassitudo by “feigned” and coloured weariness, there were hope that his craft might rise above journeywork. Who would complain that the original was embroidered when it is to such admirable purpose as: “Thus she cried and lamented, and after she had wearied herself with sorrow and blubbered her face with tears, she closed the windows of her hollow eyes, and laid her down to sleep.” Here is prose, ever vivid and alert, ever absolved from the suspicion of the stereotyped phrase. In Adlington’s day “good taste” had not banned freshness and eccentricity from the language. A century later it had been impossible to translate glebosa camporum into “cloggy, fallowed fields;” yet this is Adlington’s expression, and it may be matched or bettered on every page. Above all, his work is distinguished by that sustained nobility of rhythm which makes the Tudor prose the best of good reading. “And while I considered these things, I looked about, and behold I saw afar-off a shadowed valley adjoining nigh unto a wood, where amongst diverse other herbs and pleasant verdures, me thought I saw; diverse flourishing Roses of bright damask colour; and said within my bestial mind, Verily that place is the place of Venus and the Graces, where secretly glistereth the royal hue, of so lively and delectable a flower”: here are no exotic words, no long-sought images; the rare effect is attained by a harmony, which not even the sternest simplicity can impoverish. Or take a passage in another key: “In the mean season while I was fed
