the words italicized are rendered, “_ainsi douleur! va-t’en!_”—“so grief, be off with you!” Voltaire did no better with his translations of several of Shakspeare’s plays; in one of which the “myriad-minded” makes a character renounce all claim to a doubtful inheritance, with an avowed resolution to _carve_ for himself a fortune with his sword. Voltaire put it in French, which, retranslated, reads, “What care I for lands? With my sword I will make a fortune cutting meat.” The late centennial celebration of Shakspeare’s birthday in England called forth numerous publications relating to the works and times of the immortal dramatist. Among them was a new translation of “Hamlet,” by the Chevalier de Chatelain, who also translated Halleck’s “Alnwick Castle,” “Burns,” and “Marco Bozzaris.” Our readers are, of course, familiar with the following lines:— “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on’t! Oh, fie! ’tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature, Possess it merely.” The chevalier, less successful with the English than with the modern American poet, thus renders them into French:— “_Fi donc! fi donc! Ces jours qu’on nous montrons superbes Sont un vilain jardin rempli de folles herbes, Qui donnent de l’ivraie, et certes rien de plus Si ce n’est les engines du cholera-morbus._” Some of the funniest mistranslations on record have been bequeathed by Victor Hugo. Most readers will remember his rendering of a peajacket as _paletot a la purée de pois_, and of the Frith of Forth as _le cinquième de le quatrième_. The French translator of one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, knowing nothing of that familiar name for toasted cheese, “a Welsh rabbit,” rendered it literally by “_un lapin du pays de Galles_,” or a rabbit of Wales, and then informed his readers in a foot-note that the lapins or rabbits of Wales have a very superior flavor, and are very tender, which cause them to be in great request in England and Scotland. A writer in the Neapolitan paper, _Il Giornale della due Sicilie_, was more ingenuous. He was translating from an English paper the account of a man who killed his wife by striking her with a poker; and at the end of his story the honest journalist, with a modesty unusual in his craft, said, “_Non sappiamo per certo se questo pokero Inglese sia uno strumento domestico o bensi chirurgico_”—“We are not quite certain whether this English poker [_pokero_] be a domestic or surgical instrument.” In the course of the famous Tichborne trial, the claimant, when asked the meaning of _laus Deo semper_, said it meant “the laws of God forever, or permanently.” An answer not less ludicrous was given by a French Sir Roger, who, on being asked to translate _numero Deus impare gaudet_, unhesitatingly replied, “Le numéro deux se réjouit d’être impair.”