Letters, containing an account of the late Revolution in France, and observations on the constitution, lands, manners and institutions of the English. Written during the author's residence at Paris, Versailles, and London, in the years 1789 and 1790. Translated from the German of Henry Frederic Groenvelt
Contributions
- James Scarlett
- author
- Pierre-Étienne-Louis Dumont
- author
- Samuel Romilly
- author
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- Letters, containing an account of the late Revolution in France, and observations on the constitution, lands, manners and institutions of the English. Written during the author's residence at Paris, Versailles, and London, in the years 1789 and 1790. Translated from the German of Henry Frederic Groenvelt translation has paratext
Summary (extracted citations)
p. iv: The light in which such a foreigner, without any of those prejudices, of which no native can wholly divest himself, has seen some of our most important institutions, would, it was imagined, not be entirely uninstructive to Englishmen. p. viii: The idioms of the English and German languages are, in many instances, so unlike each other, that the translator has frequently found himself under the necessity of departing very much from the mode of expression used in his original, but he is not conscious of having any where altered or disguised the sense.
Notes
The translator's advertisement continues the fiction of the German original by Groenvelt. It is stated that the author's harsh judgment of the English institutions must be understood against the background of his recent stay in France, where liberty is now in full motion. Also contains a paragraphs on the technicalities of translating from German into English.