142: The disgraces of Gil Blas are for the most part such as rather excite mirth than compassion. He himself laughs at them, and his transitions from distress to happiness or, at least, ease, are so sudden that neither the reader has time to pity him, nor himself to be acquainted with affliction. This conduct.... prevents that generous indignation which ought to animate the reader against the sordid and vicious disposition of the world. I have attempted to represent modest merit struggling with every difficulty to which a friendless orphan is exposed from his own want of experience as well as from the selfishness, envy, malice, and base indifference of mankind.

143: Go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? The world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

144: Sterne, Goldsmith, Burke, Sheridan, Moore ont une nuance propre, qui vient de leur sang, ou de leur parenté proche ou lointaine, la nuance irlandaise. De même Hume, Robertson, Smollett, W. Scott, Burns, Beattie, Reid, D. Stewart, etc., ont la nuance écossaise. Dans la nuance irlandaise ou celte, on démêle un excès de chevalerie, de sensualité, d'expansion, bref un esprit moins bien équilibré, plus sympathique et moins pratique. Au contraire, l'Écossais est un Anglais un peu affiné ou un peu rétréci, parce qu'il a plus pâti et plus jeûné.

145: Nothing could exceed the neatness of my little enclosures, the elms and hedge-rows appearing with inexpressible beauty.... Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill, sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prattling river before; on one side a meadow, on the other a green.... (It) consisted but of one story and was covered with thatch, which gave it an air of great snugness....

The walls on the inside were nicely white-washed. Though the same room served us for parlour and kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides as it was kept with the utmost neatness, the dishes, plates and coppers being well scoured and all disposed in bright rows on the shelves, the eye was agreeably relieved, and did not want richer furniture.

146: But let us have one bottle more, Deborah, my life, and Moses, give us a good song. What thanks do we not owe to heaven for thus bestowing tranquillity, health, and competence? I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth. He has no such fire-side, nor such pleasant faces about it.

147: I have no resentment now, and though he has taken from me what I held dearer than all his treasures, though he has wrung my heart (for I am sick almost to fainting, very sick, my fellow-prisoner), yet that shall never inspire me with vengeance.... If this submission can do him any pleasure, let him know that if I have done him any injury, I am sorry for it.... I should detest my own heart, if I saw either pride or resentment lurking there. On the contrary, as my oppressor has been once my parishioner, I hope one day to present him up an unpolluted soul at the eternal tribunal.

148: Sir, I perceive you are a vile Whig.

149: Il avait eu le malheur de mettre auparavant dans son dictionnaire la définition suivante du mot pension:

"An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country."

Le lecteur voit d'ici les sarcasmes des adversaires.

150: I think him (Rousseau) one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been.... I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes I would like to have him work in the plantations.... It is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them (Rousseau and Voltaire).

151: I'll come no more behind your scenes, David, for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.

152: Voici une phrase célèbre qui donnera quelque idée de ce style, assez semblable à celui de Thomas:

We were now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Far from me and my friends be such rigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. The man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.

153: Rambler, 108, 109, 110, 111.

154: Voir sa biographie par Boswell, 4 vol.

155: When a character is strongly marked in the living face, it may be considered as an index to the mind, to express which with any degree of justness in painting requires the utmost efforts of a great master. (Analysis of Beauty.)

156: Une femme de chambre sous Louis XIV, dit Courier, écrivait mieux que le plus grand écrivain d'aujourd'hui.

157: Mr Walsh used to encourage me much, and used to tell me, that there was one way left of excelling; for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct; and desired me to make that my study and my aim.

158: 1709.

159: Tye-wig.

160: In my politics, I think no further than how to preserve the peace of my life, in any government under which I live; nor in my religion, than to preserve the peace of my conscience in any church with which I communicate. I hope all churches and governments are so far of God as they are rightly understood and rightly administered; and where they are or may be wrong, I leave it to God alone to mend and reform them. (Lettre à Atterbury, 1717.)

161: Vale, unice.

162:

In these lone walls (their days' eternal bound)
These moss-grown domes with spiry turrets crowned,
Where awful arches make a noon-day night,
And the dim windows shed a solemn light.

163:

The wand'ring streams that shine between the hills,
The grots that echo to the tinkling rills,
The dying gales that pant upon the trees,
The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze.

164:

Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banished lover, or some captive maid;
They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires,
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart,
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.

165:

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest that equal periods keep,
Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep....
Desires compos'd, affections ever e'en,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to heav'n.
Grace shines around with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes;
For her the spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins Hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.

166:

Oh grace serene! Oh virtue heavenly fair!
Divine oblivion of low-thoughted care!
Fresh-blooming hope, gay daughter of the sky!
And faith, our early immortality!
Enter, each mild, each amicable guest:
Receive, and wrap me in eternal rest!

167:

I come, I come! Prepare your roseate bow'rs,
Celestial palms and ever-blooming flow'rs.

168: M. Guillaume Guizot.

169:

170: Voyez son épître sur le caractère des femmes, si dure. À son avis, ce caractère se compose d'amour du plaisir et d'amour du pouvoir.

171:

Or stain her honour or her new brocade,
Forget her pray'rs or miss a masquerade,
Or lose her heart or necklace at a ball.

172:

To love an altar built
Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt;
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves,
And all the trophies of his former loves.
With tender billet doux he lights the pyre,
And breathes three am'rous sighs to rise the fire.

173:

Here sighs a jar, and there a goose-pye talks;
Men prove with child, as pow'rful fancy works,
And maids turn'd bottles call aloud for corks.

174:

First he relates, how sinking to the chin,
Smit with his mien, the Mud-nymphs suck'd him in.
How young Lutetia, softer than the down,
Nigrina black, and Merdamenta brown,
Vy'd for his love in jetty bow'rs below....
Full in the middle way there stood a lake,
Which Curl's Corinna chanc'd that morn to make
(Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop
Her ev'ning cates before his neighbour's shop).
.... And the fresh vomit run for ever green.

175:

See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heap'd o'er her head!
Philosophy that lean'd on Heav'n before
Shrinks to her second cause and his no more.
Physic of metaphysic begs defence,
And metaphysic calls for aid on sense....
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares morality expires.
Nor public flame, nor private dares to shine,
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine;
Lo! Thy dread empire, Chaos, is restor'd;
Light dies before thy uncreating word,
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall
And universal Darkness buries all.

176:

Oft in her glass the musing shepherd spies
The headlong mountains and downward skies
The watr'y landskip of the pendant woods
And absent trees that tremble in the floods.

177:

See, from the brake the whirring pheasant springs
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.
Alas, what avail his glossy, varying dies,
His purple crest, and scarlet circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?

178:

But now secure the painted vessel glides,
The sun beams trembling on the floating tides;
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And soften'd sounds along the waters die;
Smooth flow the waves, the Zephyrs gently play.
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair:
Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe,
That seem'd but Zephyrs to the train beneath.
Some to the sun their insect wings unfold,
Whaft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight,
Their fluid bodies half-dissolv'd in light.
Loose to the wind their airy garment flies,
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes;
Where ev'ry beam new transient colours flings,
Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings.

179:

Behold, four kings in majesty rever'd,
With hoary whiskers, and a forky beard.
And four fair Queens, whose hands sustain a flow'r,
Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r.
Four knaves, in garb succinct, a trusty band,
Caps on their heads and halberts in their hand,
And party-coloured troops, a shining train,
Drawn forth to combat on the velvet plain.

180:

Peins-moi légèrement l'amant léger de Flore,
Qu'un doux ruisseau murmure en vers plus doux encore, etc.

181:

In the remotest wood and lonely grot,
Certain to meet that worst of evils, thought.

182:

183: Celui qu'on surnomma le Boucher.

184: Thou wilt not find my shepherdesses idly piping on oaten reeds, but milking the kine, tying up the sheaves, or if the hogs are astray, driving them to their styes. My shepherd.... sleepeth not under myrtle shades, but under hedges; nor does he vigilantly defend his flocks from wolves, because there are none.

185:

Leek to the Welsh, to Dutchmen butter's dear,
Of Irish swains potatoe is the cheer,
Oat for their feasts the Scottish shepherds grind,
Sweet turnips are the food of Blouzelind;
While she loves turnips, butter I'll despise,
Nor leeks, nor oat-meal, nor potatoe, prize.

186: Épître à miss Blount sur la vie de campagne.

187:

188: Voir les Fêtes de la Révolution, par David.

189:

Silence and Darkness! Solemn sisters! Twins
Of ancient night! I to Day's soft-ey'd sister pay my court
(Endymion's rival), and her aid implore
Now first implor'd in succour to the Muse.

190: Robert Burns.

191: Alison, History of Europe;—Porter, Progress of the Nation.

192: Comparez, pour sentir ce contraste, Gil Blas et Ruy Blas, le Paysan parvenu de Marivaux et Julien Sorel de Stendhal.

193: Faust, scène première.

194: This kind of life—the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing toil of a galley-slave—brought me to my sixteenth year.

195: After three years' tossing and whirling in the vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a goal by a consumption, which after two years' promises kindly stepped in.

196: I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets, but the first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second, from a late harvest, we lost our crops.

197: Even in the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner.

198: La plupart de ces détails sont tirés de la Biographie de Burns, par Chambers, en quatre volumes.

199: I had felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind groping of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave.... The only two openings by which I could enter the temple of Fortune, were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an aperture, I could never squeeze myself into it. The last I always hated. There was contamination in the very entrance.

200: My great constituent elements are pride and passion.

201: The collection of songs was my vade-mecum. I pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true, tender, sublime or fustian.

202: Never did a heart pant more ardently than mine to be distinguished.

203: There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more—I do not know if I should call it pleasure—but something which exalts me, which enraptures me more than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or high plantation, in a cloudy winter day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees and raving over the plain.... I listened to the birds and frequently turned out of my path, lest I should disturb their little songs or frighten them to another station. Even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot across the way, what heart, at such a time, but must have been interested for his welfare?

204: Poor inconnu as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their favour.

Il avait le droit de penser ainsi; quand il se mettait à parler le soir dans une auberge, il causait de telle façon que les domestiques allaient réveiller leurs camarades.

205: How it will mortify him to see a fellow, whose abilities would scarcely have made an eight-penny taylor and whose heart is not worth three farthings, meet with attention and notice that are withheld from the son of genius and poverty?

206:

See yonder poor o'erlabour'd wight,
So abject, mean, and vile,
Who begs a brother of the earth
To give himself leave to toil;
And his lordly fellow-worm
The poor petition spurn,
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife
And helpless offspring mourn.

207:

While winds frae off Ben Lomond blaw,
And bar the doors wi' driving snaw....
I grudge a wee the great folks' gift,
That live so bien an' snug:
I tent less and want less
Their roomy fire-side,
But hanker and canker
To see their cursed pride.
It's hardly in a body's pow'r
To keep at times frae being sour.
To see how things are shar'd;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want,
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
And ken na haw to wair't.

208: A man is a man for a' that.

209:

An', Lord, if ance they pit her till't
Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt,
An' durk an' pistol at her belt,
She'll take the streets,
An' rin her whittle to the hilt
I' th' first she meets!

210:

In politics if thou wouldst mix
And mean thy fortune be,
Bear this in mind, be deaf and blind,
Let great folks hear and see.

211:

Upon this tree there grows sic fruit
Its virtues a' can tell, man.
It raises man above the brute,
It makes him ken himself, man.
Give once the peasant taste a bit,
He's greater than a Lord, man....
King Louis thought to cut it down,
When it was unco small, man.
For this the watchman crack'd his crown
Cut off his head and all, man.

212: 1780.

213:

Should Hornie as in ancient days,
'Mang sons o' God present him,
The vera sight o' Moodie face
To's ain het hame had sent him
Wi' fright that day.

214:

Hear how he clears the points o' faith
Wi' rattlin' an' wi' thumpin'....
He's stampin' an' he's jumpin!
His lengthen'd chin, his turn'd up snout,
His eldritch squeel and gestures,
Oh! how they fire the heart devout,
Like cantharidian plasters,
On sic a day!

215:

216:

How monie hearts this day converts
O' sinners and o' lasses!
Their hearts o' stane, gin night, are gane,
As saft as ony flesh is.
There's some are fou o' love divine,
There's some are fou o' brandy.

217:

An honest man may like a glass,
An honest man may like a lass,
But mean revenge and malice fausse
He'll still disdain;
And then cry zeal for Gospel laws
Like some we ken....
.... I rather would be
An atheist clean,
Than under Gospel colours hid be
Just for a screen.

218: The Jolly Beggars.

219:

Wi' quaffing and laughing,
They ranted and they sang,
Wi' jumping and thumping
The very girdle rang.

220:

I lastly was with Curtis, among the floating batt'ries,
And there I left for witness an arm and a limb;
Yet let my country need me, with Elliot to head me,
I'd clatter on my stumps at the sound of a drum.

221:

I once was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when,
And still my delight is in proper young men....
Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot,
The regiment at large for a husband I got,
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready,
I asked no more but a sodger laddie.

222:

223:

Morality, thou deadly bane,
Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain;
Vain is his hope whose stay and trust is
In moral mercy, truth and justice.

224:

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live.

225:

Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An' let poor damned bodies be;
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,
E'en to a deil,
To skelp an' scaud' poor dogs like me
An' hear us squeel....
Then you, ye auld, snec-drawing dog!
Ye came to Paradise incog,
An' play'd on man a cursed brogue,
(Black be your fa'!)
An' gied the infant world a shog,
'Maist ruin'd a'....
But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben!
O wad ye tak a thought an' men'.
Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken—
Still hae a stake.
I'm wae to think upon yon den,
E'en for your sake!

226: "I have been all along a miserable dupe to Love." He was constantly the victim of some fair enslaver. (Récit de son frère.)

227: In short she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below.

228: Chamber's edition, t. I, p. 93.

229: In the first place, let my pupil, as he tenders his own peace, keep up a regular warm intercourse with the Deity.... You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy; but it is a sentiment that strikes home to my very soul: though sceptical in some points of our current belief, yet I think I have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence.... O thou great unknown Power, thou Almighty God!

230: My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme.

231: Voyez Tam O'Shanter, Address to the Devil, The Jolly Beggars, A man is a man, Green grow the rushes, etc.

232: «O Clarinda, shall we not meet in a state, some yet unknown state of being, where the lavish hand of plenty shall minister to the highest wish of benevolence, and where the chill north-wind of prudence shall never blow over the flowery fields of enjoyment?»

233:

234: I might write you on farming, on building, on marketing. But my poor distracted mind is so torn, so jaded, so racked and bedeviled with the task of the superlatively damned obligation to make one guinea do the business of three, that I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business.

235: My worst enemy is moi-même.... There are just two creatures I would envy: a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without enjoyment, the other has neither wish nor fear.

236: What business has a physician to waste his time on me? I am a poor pigeon not worth plucking.... As to my individual self I am tranquil. But Burns' poor widow and half a dozen of his dear little ones, there I am weak as a woman's tear.

237: A rascal of haberdasher taking into his head that I am dying has commenced a process against me, and will infallibly put my emaciated body into jail. Will you be so good as to accommodate me and by return of post with ten pounds? Oh James! did you know the pride of my heart, you would feel doubly for me! Alas, I am not used to beg!

238: Tome II, page 17, Pitt's Speeches.

239: Discours de Pitt, 17 février 1800.

240: Life of William Pitt, by Macaulay.

241: Misdemeanours.

242: Felons. Ces termes légaux n'ont pas d'équivalent en français.

243: The feelings of a man when he arrives at the place of execution are, probably, much as mine were every time I set my foot in the office, which was every day for more than a half year together.

244: In this situation such a fit of passion has sometimes seized me, when alone in my chambers, that I have cried out aloud, and cursed the hour of my birth; lifting up my eyes to heaven not as a suppliant, but in the hellish spirit of rancorous reproach and blasphemy against my Maker.

245: My mind has always a melancholy cast, and is like some pools I have seen, which, though filled with a black and putrid water, will nevertheless in a bright day reflect the sunbeams from their surface.

246: Indeed I wonder that a sportive thought should ever knock at the door of my intellects, and still more that it should gain admittance. It is as if harlequin should intrude himself into the gloomy chamber, where a corpse is deposited in state. His antic gesticulations would be unseasonable at any rate, but more specially so, if they should distort the features of the mournful attendants into laughter. But the mind long wearied with the sameness of a dull, dreary prospect, will gladly fix his eyes on any thing that may make a little variety in its contemplations though it were but a kitten playing with her tail.

247: My device was intended to represent... the heart of a Christian, mourning and yet rejoicing, pierced with thorns, yet wreathed about with roses. I have the thorn without the rose. My brier is a wintry one, the flowers are withered, but the thorn remains.

248:

He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close-packed load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn,
And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch!
Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some.

249:

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

250:

Is India free? And does she wear her plumed
And jewelled turban with a smile of peace?
Or do we grind her still?

251: À cet égard, Crabbe est aussi un des maîtres et des rénovateurs; mais il a le style classique, et on l'a fort bien appelé «a Pope in worsted stockings.»

252:

Here Ouse slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
Delighted.

253: 1793-1794.

254: Revue d'Édimbourg, octobre 1802.

255: Voyez the Fudge Family, etc.

256: The Epicurean.

257: Lalla Rookh.

258: Voir The history of the caliph Vathek, roman fantastique et puissant, par W. Beckford, publié d'abord en français, 1784.

259: Voyez les notes de Southey, pires que celles de Chateaubriand dans les Martyrs.

260: Revue d'Édimbourg.

261: Lockhart, p. 220, Life of sir W. Scott.

262: Writer at the signet.

263: Romantic.

264: Lockhart, t. I, p. 29.

265: Lockhart, t. IV, p. 329.

266: Sa bibliothèque et sa collection furent estimées 10000 liv. sterling.

267: Je suis obligé de traduire ici par des équivalents.

268: «Aujourd'hui environ cent cinquante anecdotes!» écrit le capitaine Basil Hall, son hôte.

269: Ivanhoe, page 1. «Such being our chief scene, the date of our story refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Richard I, when his return from his long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped for by his despairing subjects, who were in the mean time subjected to every species of subordinate oppression.»—Impossible d'écrire plus lourdement.

270: Haud a care, haud a care, Monkbarns; God's sake, haud a care; sir Arthur's drowned already, and an ye fa' over the cleugh too, there will be but a wig left in the parish, and that's the minister's.

271: Circulating libraries. (Je traduis par un équivalent.)

272: Edinburgh Review, juin 1810.

273: Nos jansénistes, les puritains et les méthodistes sont les extrêmes de ce groupe.

274:

To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

275: Préface de la seconde édition des Lyrical Ballads.

276: Peter Bell,—the White doe,—the Kitten and the Falling leaves, etc.

277:

«This dull product of a scoffer's pen,
Impure conceits discharging from a heart
Harden'd by impious pride!»

278: