The theory of translation is still so undeveloped that any serious study of it is bound to deserve attention. This would be so if the writer touched no more than a few familiar languages; when his experience ranges from East to West and from ancient to modern centuries, the interest is correspondingly greater. Mr. Bates’s new hook is therefore particularly welcome, though in the matter of principles he is less explicit than one could wish, his method through the greater part of the book being to present different modern versions of the same passage (sometimes two, sometimes as many as five) and to leave the reader to draw conclusions. What follows is partly a commentary on Mr. Bates’s positive statements, partly a record of personal conclusions from the material provided. His own endeavour is ‘to provoke thought without unduly provoking the reader’; mine is the same.

In his opening pages Mr. Bates stresses the value of translation as a means to international understanding; few would dispute this, but few again have ever visualised the matter practically. Hence there is aptness in the detailed account of translation in modern Italy, an account which in its knowledge and sympathy is itself an excellent preamble to the renewal of a broken friendship. It is good to find justice done to the intellectual qualities of the Italians and recognition paid to the high standards of scholarship which distinguish much ‘popularisation ‘of Greek and Latin classics. We are given, moreover, an interesting cross-section of Italian opinion (official and unofficial) on the political and cultural significance of translation—a question of particular importance in Italy since so much is translated into Italian and so little out of it. Political propaganda apart, one would welcome signs of a similar concern in this country.

To Father Vincent Nazareth was the norm because God had chosen that kind of life for himself, because it met all the Friar Preacher’s own personal tastes and feelings as to what was most fitting to the dignity of man. Shepherds, fishermen, carpenters, in a self sufficient community not dependent upon foreign markets, ‘the primary craft of landwork and the secondary yet necessary crafts of handwork working together in the primary Co-operative Group, ‘here might be found ‘the divine pattern to souls who were to do the Redeemer’s work in the Redeemer’s way.’

He never put the ‘hand ‘before the ‘land,’ and therefore never fell into the error of William Morris and the artist-craftsmen who followed after him. ‘Home-spun will instruct you better,’ he wrote, ‘than the Declaration of Independence will instruct you on the dignity and rights of man,’ but it was the home-spun of the crofter for home use rather than the material traded in the market that he had in mind.

Father Vincent’s appreciation of hand work and land work may, perhaps, best be conveyed by his relationship with Ditchling, and that may ibe seen in his letters after he had ceased to visit us.

‘Your gift of Whitsun cream was more than welcome! It was, oi course, one of the best things that even Ditchling could give. But it had memories in its gift; and they were even better than milk and honey. How irresistibly it brought back the Ditchling I first knew, and loved with the intensity of a first love. I can imagine that many a man marries the girl he loves not merely because he loves her, but because his love of her, or her love of him, has saved him from some fall ...