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Tristram Shandy being any man's solid dish is too ludicrous, and therefore our honest translator softens it into Tristram Shandy is a feast of itself.' We note this trifle the rather because the mention of Tristram Shandy in this letter, dated 19th December, 1828, led, as we apprehend, to a little subsequent embarras in M. Jacquemont's respectable family. We have seen that M. Jacquemont had a young female cousin residing at Arras, Mademoiselle Zoé de Noizet, and we find that in July, 1831, Jacquen.ont learned, by a letter from his fair cousin, that, after his example, she had been endeavouring to perfect herself in the English tongue, and for that purpose had undertaken-of all the books in the world-to translate Tristram Shandy. Jacquemont, who in the interval had probably so far improved his English as to be able to see the drift of Tristram Shandy, is exceedingly surprised at the choice which poor Miss Zoé had made, and he writes to her to express, as decently as he can, that it is altogether an improper book for her purpose. He had, no doubt, totally forgotten the style in which, two years and a half before, he had talked of Tristram Shandy; but what wonder that the poor girl and the poor girl's friends thought that if she were to learn English, no book could be more proper than that which her clever literary cousin had taken with him all the way to India as his solid dish? We, however, can easily imagine Zoé's perplexity in endeavouring to discover, in the obscure and filthy sensualities of Sterne, the moral meaning which had recommended the book to the savant. But it is clear that to this hour the learned family of the Jacquemonts have not discovered their error; for however indifferent they might be about Lady W. and Lady G., they would not, knowingly, exhibit their young relation in so ridiculous a light. Nor do we think the savant himself ever knew very much about English literature, which he so confidently talks of, for we find him saying, so late as May, 1831

That he has no appetite for his dinner if he has not Locke or Sterne, or some other illustrious dead to bear him company at table.' -vol. ii. p. 72.

And

We need hardly suggest, that no man who had ever read and understood a page of any of Locke's works, would have classed him with the author of Tristram Shandy.' In truth, Jacquemont knows no more about Locke than dear Zoé did of Sterne. although he talks of his great proficiency in English-and of the set speeches which he made in that tongue to Lord William Bentinck on his first arrival-we find that even after having spent six months in the society at Calcutta, where, he says, he spoke nothing but English, he can make no better attempt at our language than the following:

" Conclude

'Conclude from this chapter, if you will, that I am, perhaps, a too great admirer of the foretold lady, and that it is high time for me to depart with the occasions of meeting her often.'—vol. i. p. 144.

But we must return to our translator. The preceding examples are of wilful though trifling misrepresentation; what follows is pure ignorance:

'I have always had but little faith in the theory which accounts for the trade-winds constantly blowing from the same quarter. You may just as well give the same reason to explain why your daughter is dumb.'-vol. i. p. 23.

This grave incoherent nonsense about a dumb daughter and the trade-winds is in the original a pleasant allusion to a passage in Molière, which has become a proverbial expression for any inconclusive reasoning:-Voilà justement ce qui fait que votre fille est muette. (Médecin Malgré lui, a. ii. s. 6.)

When Jacquemont is describing the discomforts of his mode of living in the mountains, the translator makes him eat a careful repast,' the very reverse of the truth, for the repast was a miserable improvisation-the original expression is soucieux'—and the meaning-an anxious and scanty meal.

The Zélée, in getting out of the harbour of Rio, runs foul of a merchantman, and a good deal of damage is done; 'but no matter; the French agent will pay the damage,' p. 27. Poor Jacquemont, instead of this matter of fact platitude, meant a sly political joke'Le contribuable français est là qui paira les avaries'-i. e. The poor French tax-payer will have to pay the damage'-as if an Englishman should have said, 'Our ignorant captain has caused the damage, but John Bull, "le contribuable Anglais," must pay for it.'

These mistakes are only ludicrous; but some are more serious. In the account of the strange affair between the Zélée and the English merchantman, the translation says the Zélée was worked in a particular manner, so as not to wait for his (the Englishman's) broadside,' vol. i. p. 62. This would imply that the English ship had a broadside to fire, and that the conduct of the French captain had so much of an excuse. The original expresses directly the contrary-Immédiatement après une bordée à boulets et à mitraille, et tandis qu'on rechargait toutes les pièces d'un bord, le navire manoeuvrait de manière à ne pas faire attendre sa seconde bordée.' 'Immediately after the first broadside of round and grape, and while they were re-loading the guns, the [French] ship was manoeuvred so as not to delay her SECOND broadside.' Another very serious mistake occurs in the version of Jacquemont's impertinence about Lady W. Bentinck, which we have already alluded to. The translator makes Jacquemont say that 'Lady William's attempt to convert him had failed, and that he even feared that she was a little less sure of her aim than she was

at

at first.'-p. 88. This is quite inoffensive, and would only imply that she began to doubt whether she should succeed in converting him. But the real meaning is—as we have rendered it—that she not only failed to convert him, but had herself become a little less confident in her own belief-sûre de son fait-than she was before. The following version also contradicts the meaning of the original. Jacquemont calls the Hindoostanee a contemptible patois, not worth learning'-' the language of the court and courtiers.'-p. 90. It surprises one that the language of court and courtiers, generally considered the most correct and polite, should, in this instance, be a contemptible jargon.' The French is, ' de cour et des courtiers,'-i. e. ' lawyers and brokers.'

The following passage must perplex an English reader :

'In half an hour Shah Mohammed dismissed his court; and I retired in procession with the resident. The drums beat in the fields as I passed before the troops with my dressing-gown of worked muslin. Why were you not present to enjoy the honours conferred upon your progeny?'-vol. i. p. 190.

Again

At Lahore, I lived in a little palace of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; a battalion of infantry was on duty near me; the drums beat in the fields when I put my head out of doors; and when I walked in the cool of the evening, in the alleys of my garden, fountains played around me by thousands!'-vol. ii. p. 216.

One cannot conceive how drums beating in the fields can have any thing to do with the honours paid Jacquemont in the cities of Delhi and Lahore; but the French phrase, Les tambours battirent aux champs quand je passais, means no more than that when he passed the guard was turned out, and the drums beat a salute.

In the same way, when Jacquemont tells a story of a poor Swiss professor, who, having proved that the history of William Tell was a fable of the eleventh century, was condemned to death for having overturned a belief which is one of the dearest heirlooms of a Swiss peasant; the translator makes him add that, fortunately being contumacious,' he escaped with his life.'-p. 290. One wonders why, if the error was so criminal, the being contumacious in it should have procured a mitigation of the punishment. The explanation is that absent offenders are condemned as 'contumaces—and Jacquemont meant to say, that being fortunately absent, he was condemned in effigy only, and so his life was saved.

We suppose these instances, selected at random, from the first half of the first volume, will satisfy our readers as to the qualifications of the translator in the niceties of the French idiom; and that they will agree in our opinion, that it would have been as well if, instead of criticising other people, he had employed himself in learning his own business,

ART.

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ART. III-1. Abstract of the Answers and Returns made pursuant to an Act passed in the eleventh year of his Majesty King George the Fourth, intituled An Act for the taking an Account of the Population of Great Britain, and the increase or diminution thereof.' Ordered by the House of Commous to be printed, 2nd April, 1833. 3 vols. folio.

2. Abstract of Returns under the Irish Population Acts-Enumeration, 1831. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 7th August, 1833.

3. Sur la Population de la Grande Bretagne. Par L. R. Villermé,

1834.

SUCH documents as those named at the head of our paper, however generally interesting, are accessible to so few who are not members of the legislature, or of the government offices, that we think our readers may be gratified by a short account of the nature of the inquiries which have been instituted and of their most important results.

When David numbered the people it was justly imputed to him as a sin, for he had done it in a spirit of pride and vain-glory; but the investigations, of which the results are here before us, were undertaken, in the first place, to enable the legislature to exercise an enlightened justice in their fiscal, political, and moral enactments; and, in the second place, to afford to individuals authentic data for the regulation of some of their most important mutual transactions. With these objects censuses of more or less detailed investigation have been instituted both by ancient and modern governments; but in no other age or nation has there been displayed such an analytical view of the whole frame of society, such an anatomical exhibition of the body politic, as these volumes present. It is obvious that in a series of such censuses, made at equal intervals of time, the value of each is increased by the power of comparing it with all the others; thus augmenting the probability of tracing the causes of difference, whether of good or evil, by observing what other variations are concomitant with each. For such comparison it becomes absolutely necessary that at each census the returns should be made from precisely the same subdivisions of districts, and again combined always into the same larger divisions.

The operation of the poor-laws has made the inhabitants of every place, maintaining its own poor, interested in accurately knowing their own boundaries; and from the overseers of every such place returns were required on four and twenty questions, comprising details which must have demanded considerable attention, and occasioned much personal trouble. And it is cre

ditable

ditable to the zeal and intelligence both of questioners and respondents, that no place has been known finally to have omitted making due return, though the number of such places amounts to 16,655, besides 11,301 returns on the subject of parish registers.'* To digest, and reduce into order, so as to render easily accessible such an unwieldy bulk of information, required a mind at once strong, and clear, and indefatigable: rightly, therefore, was the task remitted to Mr. Rickman, who had, for thirty years, so successfully laboured in the same field-to whom experience had shown the defects of the three previous decennial investigations,to whose suggestions much of the present amended mode of inquiry has been owing,†-and to whom we are indebted for a most lucid arrangement of the consequent returns-together with calculations, inferences, and results both in a tabular form and in the important observations contained in his preface, besides above four thousand three hundred notes scattered through the volumes,passimque spargere lucem.

Mr. Rickman's preface is indeed a curious document in more ways than one. We once heard an eminent lawyer declare that a clause of an Act of Parliament, in which the arrangement of the words was the best that could be, gave him as much pleasure in the perusal as the finest stanza of Spenser's. In the same way everything which is perfect in its kind, and consummately contrived to answer its purpose, may convey to one who understands its skilfulness, a pleasure similar to that with which we contemplate what is more distinctively denominated a work of art. Such a sort of satisfaction have we derived from Mr. Rickman's preface. It is not alone remarkable in respect of its scientific merits, but is also worthy to be studied as exhibiting perhaps the most perfect example which is anywhere to be found of practical ability in setting on foot a statistical inquiry of enormous extent.

It is curious to trace the devices, and interesting to contemplate the success, with which a statistician sitting in his closet could take order for the execution of a project which required that twentyfour millions of mankind should, in the course of one day, render

After noticing the ambiguity of the terms parish, parochial chapelry, &c., and another class of doubtful parishes created by the act of 1818, for the building of additional churches in populous parishes, Mr. Rickman says, for any general purposes the number of parishes and parochial chapelries, in England and Wales, may safely be taken at 10,700. The number of places in England and Wales, of which the population is distinctly stated in the present abstract, is 15,609; the number of parishes in Scotland is 918; of population returns, 1046.-Pref. p. 18.

See his elaborate statements in the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee on the Bill for taking an account of the Population of Great Britain, and of the increase and diminution thereof,' ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 11th May, 1830; and again before the Committee on the Re-committed Bill,' ordered to be printed, 26th May, 1830,

such

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