intermediate translation inquired after by your correspondent.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.


In answer to "JARLZBERG," I beg to inform him of the following
translation of Erasmus' _Praise of Folly_:--

"Moriæ Encomium, or the Praise of Folly, made English from the
Latin of Erasmus by W. Kennet, of S. Edm. Hall, Oxon, now Lord
Bishop of Peterborough. Adorn'd with 46 copper plates, and the
effigies of Erasmus and Sir Thos. More, all neatly engraved from
the designs of the celebrated Hans Holbeine. 4th edition. 1724."

Kennett, however, in his preface, dated 1683, alludes to two other
translations, and to Sir Thomas Challoner's as the _first_. He does not
mention the name of the second translator, but alludes to him as "_the
modern translator_," and as having lost a good deal of the wit of the
book by having "tied himself so strictly to a literal observance of the
Latin." This is his excuse for offering to the public a third
translation, in which he professes to have allowed himself such
"elbow-room of expression as the humoursomeness of the subject and the
idiom of the language did invite."

HERMES.


The intermediate translation of the _Moriæ Encomium_ of Erasmus, to
which your correspondent refers, is that by John Wilson, 8vo. London
1661, of which there is a copy in the Bodleian.