Nov. 5. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



437 



philological curiosity. Sucli queer medleys have 

 been the result whenever two opposite idioms have 

 been thrown together and unskilfully stirred up. 

 Very few foreigners indeed, Sclavonic nations 

 being excepted, and particularly the Russians, 

 •write French tolerably well. The present Lord 

 Mahon and Lady Montaigne, in an excellent 

 Essay on Marriage, are exceptions to the rule. 

 Voltaire used to say, — 



" Faites tous vos vers a Paris ; 

 Et n'allez pas en Allemagtie !" 



And very right he was. Ilis kingly disciple com- 

 mitted more than once such Irish rhymes as 

 these : 



" Je vais cueillir clans leurs sentlers (des Muses) 

 De fraiches et charmantes roses ; 

 Et je dedaigiie les lauriers, 

 En exceptant les lauriers sauces." 



Forgetting the difference of pronunciation be- 

 tween the soft s of 7-ose (roze) and the lisping 

 50und of the c In sauce (soss). As I have not by 

 me the ponderous and voluminous works of the 

 poetical monarch, I may have altered some of the 

 ■words of the quotation; but the rhymes sauce 

 and rose I aver to be true to the primitive copy. 

 Even Protestant refugees, born of French parents, 

 brought up amongst their co-religionists and coun- 

 trymen, Avrote a strange gibberish, often ungram- 

 matical, always unidiomatic, of which traces may 

 be found even in Basnage and Ancillon. A recent 

 French theologian, the clever author of a Life of 

 Spinosa, written in Germany and published in 

 Paris with some success, has such expressions as 

 these : 



" Les villes protestantcs preferent la liberte avec 

 Calvin que la tyrannique Concorde avec Luther." — 

 Hist. Crit. dii Rationalisme, p. 49. 



" Et ailleuz : Stiittgard Dontll ctalt conservateur 

 DE LA Bibliotheque." — lb. 



And M. Amand Saintes is a Frenchman, and a 

 most erudite man. The celebrated Frau Bettina 

 von Arnim, who dared to translate into English 

 and to print in Berlin (apud Trowitzsch and Son, 

 1838), under the new title of Diary of a Child, 

 her own untranslateable letters to Gothe, had at 

 least the very good excuse of her nationality for 

 her peculiar English, the choicest, funniest, mad- 

 dest, and saddest English ever penned on this 

 planet or in any other, and of which I hope " N. 

 & Q." will accept some small specimens, taken at 

 random among thousands such. To begin with 

 the opening address : 



" To the English Bards. 

 *' Gentlemen ! — Tlie noble cup of your mellifluous 

 tongue so often brimmed with immortality, here filled 

 with odd but pure and fiery draught, do not refuse to 

 taste if you relish its spirit to be homefelt, though not 

 liome-born. « Bettina Aunim." 



We will next pass to the " Preamble" : 



" The translating of Gothe's Correspondence with a 

 Child into English was generally disapproved of. Pre- 

 vious to its publication in Germany, the well-renowned 

 Mrs. Austin, by regard for the great German poet, 

 proposed to translate it ; but after having perused it 

 with attention, the literate and the most famed book- 

 seller of London thought unadvisable the publication 

 of a book that in every way widely differed from the 

 spirit and feelings of the English, and therefore it could 

 not be depended upon for exciting their interest. Mrs. 

 Austin, by her gracious mind to comply with my 

 wishes, proposed to publish some fragments of it, but 

 as no musician ever likes to have only those passages 

 of his composition executed that blandish the ear, I 

 likewise refused my assent to the maiming of a work, 

 that not by my own merit, but by chance and nature 

 became a work of art, that only in the untouched deve- 

 lopment of its genius might judiciously be enjoyed and 

 appraised." 



Our next and last is taken from p. 133. : 



" From those venturesome and spirit-night-wander- 

 ings I came home with garments wet with melted 

 snow ; they believed I had been in the garden. When 

 night I forgot all ; on the next evening at the same 

 time it came back to my mind, and the fear too I had 

 suffered ; I could not conceive, how I had ventured to 

 walk alone on that desolate road in the night, and to 

 stay on such a waste dreadful spot ; I stood leaning at 

 the 'court gate ; to-day it was not so mild and still as 

 yesterday ; the gales rose high and roared along ; they 

 sighed up at my feet and hastened on yonder side, the 

 fluttering poplars in the garden bowed and flung off 

 their snow-burden, the clouds drove away in a great 

 hurry, what rooted fast wavered yonder, and what 

 could ever be loosened, was swept away by the hasten- 

 ing breezes" (!!!). 



P. S. — Excuse my French-English. 



Philarete Chasles, Mazarinaeus. 

 Paris, Palais de I'lnstitut. 



SUAKSFEABE CORRESPONDENCE. 



Meaning of "Delighted" in some Places of 

 Shakspeare. — I am sorry to be obliged to differ so 

 often in opinion with H. C. K., but as we are both, 

 I trust, solely actuated by the love of truth, he 

 no doubt ■will excuse me. My diiference now 

 with him is about " delighted spirit," by which he 

 understands the " tender delicate spirit," while I 

 take It to be the " delectable " or " delightful 

 spirit." As I think this is founded on the Latin, 

 I beg permission to quote the following portion of 

 my note on Jug. 11. 3. In my edition of Sallust : 



"Incorruptus, &(p6apros, i.e. incapable of dissolution, 

 the incorrvptibilis of the Fathers of the Church. In 

 imitation probably of the Greek verbal adjective in tos, 

 as alper6s, (TTpeirT6s, etc., the Latins, especially Sallust, 

 sometimes used the past part, as equivalent to an adj. 

 in bilis : comp. xliii. 5. ; Ixxvi. 1. ; xci. 7. ; Cat. i. 4., 



