And so we get to a fresh virtue of _Corinne_, or rather we reach its
main virtue by a different side. It has an immense historical value as
showing the temper, the aspirations, the ideas, and in a way the manners
of a certain time and society. A book which does this can never wholly
lose its interest; it must always retain that interest in a great
measure, for those who are able to appreciate it. And it must interest
them far more keenly, when, besides this secondary and, so to speak,
historical merit, it exhibits such veracity in the portraiture of
emotion, as, whatever be its drawbacks, whatever its little temptations
to ridicule, distinguishes the hapless, and, when all is said, the noble
and pathetic figure of Corinne.

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] I am creditor neither to praise nor to blame for this translation,
which is the old English version brought out in the same year as the
original, but corrected by another hand for the present edition in the
pretty numerous points where it was lax or unintelligent in actual
rendering. In the places which I have compared, it seems to me to
present that original very fairly now; and I am by no means sure that an
excessively artificial style like that of the French Empire is not best
left to contemporaries to reproduce. At any rate, a really good new
translation of _Corinne_ would be a task unlikely to be achieved except
by rather exceptional talents working in labour of love: and I cannot
blame the publishers of this issue for not waiting till such a
translator appeared.