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that our brethren beyond the water are chargeable with a neglect of continental literature . We have as yet seen no notice of consequence , in any British Journal , of Mr . Bouterwek ' s History of English Poetry , which forms a
portion of his large History of Belles Lettres in modern Europe . Sismondi has borrowed liberally from this work , and professes bis obligations to it * And though a work embracing the elegant literature of the Portuguese , Spanish , French , Italian , German and
English languages , cannot be expected to be executed equally well in every part , yet we surely have no book in our own language which can claim equality with that portion of Mr .
Bouterwek ' s which treats of England . The French have long since translated the volumes which contain the history of their literature ; but those which are devoted to that of England are not even known to the nation most
concerned to read them . There is , in fact , a superciliousness in the manner in which our transatlantic brethren are apt to speak of Germany and German learning , highly unbecoming the courtesy of true scholarship , and
unfavourable to the progress of learning . It is an inadequate excuse for this , that they do not understand the language and literature which they disparage . For , besides that not understanding a thing is a poor excuse for vilifying it , the same unfriendly spirit prevails in those
departments of study which are pursued in the Latin language . We have never witnessed without regret the unfriendly tone assumed by so great and wonderful a man as Porson toward
scholars like Hermann and Jacobs ; and this feeling of regret at a tone , which the unquestioned superiority of Porson might palliate in him , turns into diagust when we see it imitated by such disciples as Bioomfield and Kidd toward men like Seidler and
Schaefer . The cause of classical learning in England needs not the aid of such an affectation of superiority . For though the number of profound classical scholars is far greater in Germany than in England , and the progress made iaue
" by the Germans in some p arts Dy the Germans in some parts of classical literature , as particularly the doctrine of the Greek metres , is l ) e yond any thing which the English P ress lias yet shewn us , still the memory of Porson . and the reputation of
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Gaisford , Eimsley and Dobre , are praise enough for this generation , to enable it to enter honourably into the comparison with any other country or age in the department of Greek literature . We should not have dwelt so
long on this topic , had not the cause of learning suffered a serious detriment from the unfriendly spirit in question , of which we will give one more instance . It is known to every biblical scholar , that the translation of Michaelis by the present Bishop of ^ Peterborough , the only living theologian of any considerable note in the Chureh of
England , has produced anew era in the science of tbeology in that country . It was , therefore , to be supposed ,, that farther light and aid from this language would have come with a favourable prepossession to English biblical critics . So far has this fair expectation been disappointed , that every attempt to translate Eichhorn ' s Introduction to
the Old Testament—a work in . every respect incomparably superior to the Introduction , of Michaelis to the New Testament — has been systematically discouraged . Dr . Geddes informs us , in a Latin letter to Eichhorn , appended to Good ' s Life of the Doctor , that on
his presenting a proposal for such a translation to Bishop Horsley , he was treated with great rudeness by that prelate . This might the sooner be pardoned from Bishop Horsley , who , not knowing the German language , might more naturally be insensible to the value of an author like Eichhorn .
But what shall we say to language like that which we are about Jo quote from Bishop Marsh himself , the translator of Michaelis , whom ten years' residence at Leipsic must have put in a
capacity , one would think , to translate any German author : * ' Nor can . it be necessary to say any thing more at present of Eichhorn ' s Introduction , which has never been translated , and
from the difficulties , both of the language and of the subject , cannot be understood by many English readers . " ( Lect . Hi . p . 60 , Amer . edit . ) Does this mean that an English reader , not understanding German , would be unable to read the work ? If it do . the
proposition is correct to be sure , but singularly nugatory . If it mean that an English reader , understanding German , would still be unable to under stand this work , we wonder at the
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Selections from <( Tlie North American Review" 449
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vol . xvi . 3 n
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1821, page 449, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2503/page/9/
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