with the slightest notion of French, would propose as a title for any possible book, a mode of speech so utterly meaningless as "L'Esprit sur les Lois."

There are two other expressions in French which require to be carefully discriminated by foreign writers; namely, "arrêt" and "arrêté." The former is applied to the judgments or decisions of a court of justice, and is, strictly speaking, a legal term. The latter is employed to express the decrees or orders emanating from legislative or police authorities, and belongs to political phraseology. It is impossible to read three French state-papers without noticing this distinction; and yet, Sir A. Alison, who must have perused almost every document connected with the great revolution, confounds these terms throughout his "History of Europe." He talks of "the arrêt of the First Consul; " "the arrêt establishing arms of honour;" "the arrét for Fouché's dismissal," &c.; and by that term, instead of "arrêté," he commonly describes the orders and regulations of the French Council of State and other political bodies.

The same writer, speaking of the reception of the Allied Sovereigns in Paris in 1814, says:—

"The enthusiasm of the multitude knew no bounds. Cries of Vive l'Empereur Alexandre!' Vive le Roi de Prusse!' 'Vivent les Alliés!' 'Vivent notres Libérateurs!' burst from all sides."-History of Europe.

Sir A. Alison knows enough of French to be aware that "our deliverer" may be translated into that language, "notre libérateur;" and he fancies that, to put the same words in the plural, he has only to add an s to each; forgetting that the correct plural of "notre" is "nos."

Turning to Bertrand he said, 'Tout à présent est fini!

sauvons nous.

Which Alison translates thus:

"All is now over, let us save ourselves.'

" is "to save,'

The literal meaning of "sauver but it also signifies "to run away"-"to escape;" and it was in the latter sense that Napoleon employed it, when he addressed the above words to Bertrand after the battle of Waterloo. The correct English of the phrase is: "All is now over; let us be off.”

So long as this blundering is confined to mere verbal inaccuracy, it is harmless enough; but it sometimes goes the length of perverting historical truth, and then it becomes peculiarly offensive. The following passage in the same writer is an instance in point. He is describing the effervescence caused in Paris by the flight of Louis XVI. and the royal family, in June 1791, and continues thus:

"Marat announced in his Journal that a general insurrection was indispensable; in a few days the sanguinary monarch would return at the head of a numerous army and a hundred guns, to

destroy the city by red-hot shot; and Freron thundered in the 'Orateur du Peuple' against the infamous queen, who united the profligacy of Messalina to the bloodthirstiness of the Medici."

When we speak of the "Medici" as a family, we allude to the great characters who have rendered that name illustrious; such as Cosmo, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leo X., &c. With the wisdom and virtues by which they were distinguished, we are all familiarly acquainted through the able writings of Roscoe; but, until Sir A. Alison published his "History of Europe," no one had ever heard of their bloodthirstiness! Fortunately, however, for their fame, the historian has given in a foot-note the words of Freron, from which I find that the allusion is not to the Medici, as a family, but to one person who bore that name, viz. Catherine de' Medici (or, as the French write it, Medicis), the mother of Charles IX., and the instigator of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Freron's words are:

"Il est parti ce roi imbécile, ce roi parjure, cette reine scélérate qui réunit la lubricité de Messaline à la soif du sang qui dévorait Medicis. Femme exécrable, Furie de la France, c'est toi qui étais l'âme du complot."-FRERON. L'Orateur du Peuple, No. 46.

It is inconceivable to what extent the facts of history are perverted or misstated through the ignorance of translators. If Freron had wished to speak of the Medici, he would have said "les Medicis;" but by using the expression Medicis,

he showed that he spoke of only one person of the name; and that person Sir A. Alison should have searched for among his historical recollections, before he affixed to the whole race the brand of proverbial bloodthirstiness.

This misquotation and mistranslation of foreign words and idioms are not confined to the living languages: the Latin also comes in for a share of them. Southey, in one of his Letters, speaking of the gap which might be found in his posthumous works, has these words:

“I have planned more poems and more histories; so that, whenever I am removed to another state of existence, there will be some valde lacrymabile hiatus in some of my posthumous works."-Life and Correspondence.

In this passage Southey not only misquotes the Latin words, a not very creditable thing for one who is perpetually harping on his retentive memory; but in doing so he gives us a glaring sample of ungrammatical Latinity—a proceeding which speaks but little for his boasted classical attainments. It is obvious that, in the above quotation, he had in his eye Virgil's well-known hiatus valde deflendus; but his memory failing him as to the exact words, he supplies the loss by coupling an adjective of the neuter gender with a noun of the masculine.

Mrs. Sigourney's Latin is on a par with her French. Alluding to the equestrian statue of the Porte St. Denis, she says, "The only inscrip

tion

upon

it is 'Ludovico Magno;'" and then she adds with reference to Versailles :

"Here 'Ludovico Magno,' as he was fond of being styled, is multiplied by the pencil in the most imposing forms."

These quotations from foreign languages are dangerous things in the hands of the uninitiated. For one instance in which the writer shows his dexterity in using them, hundreds might be quoted in which he has nothing to show but the folly of one who has been playing with edged tools. It is plain that Mrs. Sigourney was not aware that "Ludovico Magno" means " To Louis the Great." Otherwise, instead of the barbarism, "Ludovico Magno is multipled," she would have said: "Ludovicus Magnus is multiplied."

From Mrs. Sigourney I shall pass to her illustrious countryman, Benjamin Franklin. He says in one of his letters:

66 "We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly called an ephemerae."

And farther on he adds:

"But what will fame be to an ephemerae who no longer exists ? "

Had Franklin said that he had been shown the skeleton of an asses, or that an asses no longer exists, he would not have uttered a more glaring absurdity. And yet this great philosopher, who could not distinguish the singular from the plural in Latin, had the courage and the patriotism,

K