Note 238 — Chapter V

"L'Arcadie de la Comtesse de Pembrok, mise en nostre langue," by J. Baudoin; Paris, 1624, three vol. 8vo. It contains fancy portraits of Sidney and of his sister. The second translation appeared at the bookseller's, Robert Fouet, in 1625, in the same size; it is ornamented with pretty engravings. Of its three parts the first was the work of "un brave gentilhomme," and the two others of Mdlle. Geneviève Chappelain. It is needless to observe that the great success of D'Urfé's "Astrée" had much to do with this zeal for translating Sidney's pastoral novel.

Baudoin, who died in 1650, was the translator of various other foreign works, among which part of the works of Bacon. Sir Kenelm Digby, whose fondness for romances was great, had in his library a copy of the "Arcadia" in French; this was Baudoin's translation, and it is one of the items of the catalogue drawn in view of the sale of his library ("Bibliotheca Digbeiana," London, 1680, 4to). There was, a little later, a translation in German: "Arcadia ... in unser Hochteutsche Sprach ... ubersetzt," by Theocritus von Hirschberg [i.e., Martin Opitz], Francfort, 1629, 4to.