When the reflection
is not very profound, it is at least true; and some of his remarks show
a deep insight into men's character.
I have attempted to give Plutarch's meaning in plain language; to give
all his meaning, and neither more nor less. If I have failed in any
case, it is because I could do no better. But, though I have not always
succeeded in expressing exactly what I conceive to be the meaning of the
original, I have not intentionally added to it or detracted from it. It
may be that there are passages in which I have mistaken the original;
and those who have made the experiment of rendering from one language
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.
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