Note 8 — INTRODUCTION.

The merits of Shakespeare were never fully recognised till he was clad in garments something like his own. There is generally no idea in this country of the sublime and imposing character of the writings of Klopstock, for they have never been presented to us in any thing like their original form. If any one wish to study the freezing effect of a translation made in conformity to what are called the prejudices, or the habits of a people, let him read the Hamlet of Moratin; a man confessedly of extraordinary talent; an original dramatic writer of most distinguished success; and who has preserved a general faithfulness to the sense of his author, even in this translation: let him compare this, or any of the plays of Le Tourneur, or the choicest passages of Ducis, with ten lines taken at random from Voss, or Schlegel, and the argument will be fully understood.