Note 5 — CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.—II. PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR, PAINTED BY HIS PUBLISHER.

This sentence has unfortunately proved prophetic. Cheap translations of Le Père Goriot and La Recherche de l'Absolu were published soon after the present article appeared in print, with extracts from the opinions here expressed on Balzac's writings appended by way of advertisement. Critical remonstrance in relation to such productions as these would be remonstrance thrown away. It will be enough to say here, by way of warning to the reader, that the experiment of rendering the French of Balzac into its fair English equivalent still remains to be tried.