DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32873#0019
PREFACE
XI
into any reservoir of elegant phrase or grammatical dic-
tion would have seriously imperilled, if it did not entirely
destroy, the marvellous vividness with which his pictures
are drawn. It might, of course, be proposed that Cellini's
slang would best be counterbalanced by English verna-
cular slang. But, to begin with, where is suitable and
corresponding slang to be found? A moment's reflection
will remind the thoughtful student how countless are
the variations of slang used among different sections of
society in any one country at any one period of months
or years. The very essence of that branch of the
"vulgar tongue" lies in its ephemeral nature; its very
force arises from its constant mutability to fit the needs
of those who habitually use it. If this be true in all the
centuries, how is it conceivable to think of Cellini's six-
teenth-century Tuscan masquerading in the lingo of
Stratford-atte-Bow or Whitechapel; still less in the
ordinary but milder incorrectnesses of common middle-
class English "as she is spoke," or the jargon current
among any particular class or community?
One cannot but feel, therefore, some regret for those
to whom the original is a sealed book; upon whom the
delicate inflections due to the mistakes in grammar are
lost; to whom the less savoury portions of the narrative
must ever remain merely coarse and disagreeable stories,
and not what they in point of fact really are: Tenieresque
or Hogarthian touches completing the realism of the
whole. To omit these touches of reality would argue an
ignorance of history, especially of the history of the
XI
into any reservoir of elegant phrase or grammatical dic-
tion would have seriously imperilled, if it did not entirely
destroy, the marvellous vividness with which his pictures
are drawn. It might, of course, be proposed that Cellini's
slang would best be counterbalanced by English verna-
cular slang. But, to begin with, where is suitable and
corresponding slang to be found? A moment's reflection
will remind the thoughtful student how countless are
the variations of slang used among different sections of
society in any one country at any one period of months
or years. The very essence of that branch of the
"vulgar tongue" lies in its ephemeral nature; its very
force arises from its constant mutability to fit the needs
of those who habitually use it. If this be true in all the
centuries, how is it conceivable to think of Cellini's six-
teenth-century Tuscan masquerading in the lingo of
Stratford-atte-Bow or Whitechapel; still less in the
ordinary but milder incorrectnesses of common middle-
class English "as she is spoke," or the jargon current
among any particular class or community?
One cannot but feel, therefore, some regret for those
to whom the original is a sealed book; upon whom the
delicate inflections due to the mistakes in grammar are
lost; to whom the less savoury portions of the narrative
must ever remain merely coarse and disagreeable stories,
and not what they in point of fact really are: Tenieresque
or Hogarthian touches completing the realism of the
whole. To omit these touches of reality would argue an
ignorance of history, especially of the history of the