Gents Mag 1850 part 1 p.616
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Gentleman's Magazine 1850 part 1 p.616
some future historian shall arise to give life and motion to the animated mass, who, uniting the learning of Seden to the eloquence of Clarendon, shall for the first time scatter the darkness and disclose the majestic face of truth, even then David Hume will still retain the honourable title of the English Livy. P.90. "I might perhaps have done something by applying to Fellowes, the Ant-Calvinist, a very interesting man, - such a one, indeed, that, though I never met him but once, I could without scruple have written to him."This was the Rev. Robert Fellowes, to whom towards the end of his life, we think, Baron Maseres left his large fortune. He was much distinguished by a note in Dr. Samuel Parr's Spital Sermon, for Parr's extreme liberality of opinion led him to select for his praise those who loved to tread a little wide of the narrow path of orthodoxy. He says, "Mr. Fellowes has written several books, both on political and theological subjects, and in my opinion the ablest of them is the 'Picture of Christain Philosophy,' a third edition of which was published at the beginning of this year. He is curate of Hanley, in Warwickshire, where I have often seen him employed among a well-chosen collection of books, and have been much pleased with his conversation upon many interesting points in ethics, literature, and divinty. Now, in consequence of some reproaches that have been thrown lately on his intellectual and moral character, I am bounden to say that I am acquainted with no clergyman in this or any neighbouring county who is more respectable than Mr. Fellowes for diligence in his understanding, for purity in his principlaes, for regularity and earnestness in the discharge of his clerical duties, or integrity in the whole tenour of his life. He possesses only a scanty income, and has no prospect, I believe, of ecclesiastical preferment; but he adminsters medicine to the sick, he gives alms to the needy, he offers instruction to the ignorant, he vists the fatherless and widow in their afflication, and keeps himself in no common degree unspotted from the world," &c. (p.8. P.104. "I have been told by persons most capable of judging, that the old translation of Don Quixote is very beautiful. The book has never fallen my way. If it be well translated, the language of Elizabeth's reign must needs accord better with the style of Cervantes than more modern English would do," &c.The translation to which Mr. Southey alludes is that by Thomas Skelton, 4to. 1620. "The venerableness of Skelton's style, the rich and easy eloquence with which it steals the soul, are such as no modern language can equal." See Godwin's Life of J. and E. Philips, pp.255 and 260. Skelton says, in his dedication to "The Lord of Walden," that he translated the whole in forty days, and then cast it aside, and published it only on request of his friends." In A. Wood's Athenae Oxoniensis, under the article "James Mather," Wood says he does not know who was the translator of a volume we possess, - "Delight in several Shapes, drawn to the Life in six pleasant Histories, by the elegant pen of that famous Spaniard, Don Miguel de Cervantes. Saavedra, 1654, folio;" nor does he know the name of him who translated the second part of the History of Don Quixote, 4to. 1628. J. Mather translated the "extempore novels of M. de Cervantes" in six books, folio, 1640; but Skelton is at the head of all Cervantes translators, and next to him Motteux. It is probable that Miss Hawkins was quite ignorant both of Skelton's and Motteux's translations; when she says Tonson put Jarvis's Don Quixote into the hands of the Rev. Mr. Broughton, reader at the Temple church, to finish, or she could not have known the extraordinary beauty and fidelity of what is called Jarvis's translation. It is to be wished that it had been appreciated as it deserves, in order to rescue the English reader from the travestie of Smollett, which is disgraceful and disgusting. See Hawkins' Memoirs, vol.i. 0p.104. I presume our readers are well aware that Smollett set up the Critical Review in opposition to the Monthly, from Mrs. Carter's review of his Don Quixote, pointing out his ignorance. See the allegorical frontispiece to the first volume. As a casual observation, we may be pardoned mentioning that the second edition of the Spanish Don Quixote of 1614 is rarer than the first of 1605. |
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