Translated from the Editions of 1678 and 1827 with introduction,
notes, and some account of the author and his times.
By
J. W. Willis Bund, M.A. LL.B
and
J. Hain Friswell
Simpson Low, Son, and Marston,
188, Fleet Street.
1871.
{Translators'} Preface.
Some apology must be made for an attempt
"to translate the untranslatable." Not-
withstanding there are no less than eight
English translations of La Rochefoucauld, hardly
any are readable, none are free from faults, and all
fail more or less to convey the author's meaning.
Though so often translated, there is not a complete
English edition of the Maxims and Reflections. All
the translations are confined exclusively to the
Maxims, none include the Reflections. This may be
accounted for, from the fact that most of the trans-
lations are taken from the old editions of the
Maxims, in which the Reflections do not appear.
Until M. Suard devoted his attention to the text
of Rochefoucauld, the various editions were but
reprints of the preceding ones, without any regard
to the alterations made by the author in the later
editions published during his life-time.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25