23 SEPTEMBER 1911, Page 15

BIBLE ENGLISH.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your issue of August 26th is: "The same things uttered in Hebrew and translated into another tongue have not the same force in them." May I suggest with bated breath and whispering humbleness that James Amyot, Abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, translated Plutarch's " Lives" out of the Greek into French. Sir Thomas North translated Amyot into English. North's translation (reprinted by Lord Middleton a few years ago)—I have the 1603 edition before me —is nearer the spirit of the Greek than Amyot's or Langhorne's to our English mind.—I am, Sir, &c., R. PALMER. The Bank House, _Kirkby Lonsdale.