In the preface to this work, Madame Crousaz gives an animated and ingenious description of that difficult though humble
province of literature,—translation; and she thus replies to a friend, who
compliments her on her peculiar excellence in this line: Yet I know nothing so
ungrateful and thankless as the task of the translator. If the version be good, it
is the author alone to whom the reader feels himself obliged; if the work be bad,
the translator alone is accused: if the version be liberal, it is said to want
grace and elegance; if it be diffuse, it is deficient in strength and spirit. The
difficulty of exactly catching the genius of one language which is not familiar to
me, and which differs so materially from my own, of preserving inviolate the
strength of the one and the purity of the other; and the obligation to alter
nothing, to rigidly impart an idea in which I do not accord, or to copy an
incident which is displeasing, when conscious that it might be improved: all these
circumstances induce me to think that it is easier to compose than to
translate.Madame de
Crousaz pursues this subject even to the region of Parnassus; and she recounts to her
friend the following jeu d'esprit, which was prefixed
to one of her former publications:

We have before observed² , respecting the writing of M. De la Fontaine, that one of his qualities is to rise in the reader's estimation by gradual and
progressive advances; and this is surely preferable to the art of sinking, in which
so many are equal proficients. The first chapter of the volume before us is intitled,
by the journalist, 'My Commission of Biography,' and contains a whimsical relation
of
the circumstances whence he derived the commission, with the manner of his being
invested with it. It is a painting of the Shandean school, and not a bad copy of the
mock solemnity of Sterne's affected pathos: This infant (added my father,
pointing to me,) shall inherit this Bible after my death; and promise me, my Charles, that you will fill all these
blank leaves with the actions and occurrences of your life, be they good or bad:—
promise me, my child,— My father rose from his seat, his eye was animated, his
voice had something of peculiar solemnity,—my uncle rose also, and laid down his
pipe,—my mother clasped her hands. This scene, and the solemn silence which
accompanied it, impressed my mind with awe; I advanced—I gave my hand to my
father—he took off his cap—my uncle held out his hand—and my mother embraced me
with tears in her eyes—while, to my father's benediction, which accompanied the
Bible, every one said—Amen.

From the hour of this pathetic ceremony, the young
Charles (then twelve years old) determined on being his own biographer; the charms
of
authorship captivated his youthful imagination, and the first thing which he wished
to see was—a printing press. Instead of playing at marbles, like other boys of his
age, he was continually ruminating on the task which his father had enjoined to be
performed in the Bible; he prepared for it with the same speculation which many authors exercise when
they set out on travels, for the purpose of making a book; and he availed himself
of
every little incident in his own family. Apprehensive, however, that a journal barren
of misfortunes would be insipid, he earnestly wished that his life might be in some
degree chequered with sorrow, in order to afford just such a number of unhappy
adventures, that a spring of tears might not be wanting to water the dry ground of
his narrative.

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A love-story soon presents itself; and the journal improves (as Charles very rightly
conjectured it would) with the melancholy history of the beautiful Susette; who is
dismissed from her father's protection for a fault perhaps unpardonable, but certainly not so unnatural
as the conduct of her parent who, in consequence of her frailty, abandons for ever
his only child. We must not, however, give too much attention (partial as we are to
beauty) to this picture. Le
Vaut-rien is another equally interesting; the mournful incidents of his life,
it seems, were derived from his parents conceiving an aversion to him because he was
born with red hair; and Le Vaut-rien (the good for
nothing) owed this disgraceful name, with ten thousand calamities, to the fatal
influence of these ruddy locks.

The character of the artful Julia is the best sketch of the painter; in which the
triumph of vice over virtue, and of virtue over vice, with the struggles between
ambition and love, are touches of an animated and ingenious pencil. In the picture of the school, we are amused by the master's
whimsical method of classing his scholars according to the impression which his ideas
receive from their infantine physiognomy; and we smile at the conceit of the aquiline
noses being characteristics of distinguished birth, seldom to be found among the
vulgar.

In taking leave of this journalist, we much acknowledge that we have been much
amused with many parts of his narrative: but we cannot close our remarks without a
hint of congratulation to our fair countrywomen, that they have not German despots
for parents. If the national character of the German
father be accurately portrayed in the features of Le
grand Bailli, and in those of my Uncle (who is
a very bad copy of Uncle Toby), our English wives and daughters may bless those kind
stars which were the ascendants at their birth, and commanded it to be on this side
of the Northern Ocean.