Chap. XI.
TRANSLATION.
167
which side to take; whether to help my young master, or make fair with his father."
In the use of idiomatic phrases, a translator frequently forgets both the country of his original author, and the age in which he wrote; and while he makes a Greek or a Roman speak French or Engglish, he unwittingly puts into his mouth allusions to the manners of modern France or England. This, to use a phrase borrowed from painting, may be termed an offence against the costume. Cicero in his oration for Archias, says, "Persona quæ propter otium et studium minime in judiciis periculisque versata est." M. Patru has translated this, "Un homme que ses études et ses livres ont eloigné du commerce du Palais." The Palais, or theOld
