20 AUGUST 1887, Page 25

CURRENT LITERATURE.

The version of the Baron de Mandat.Grancey's admirable Ches Paddy, which Messrs. Chapman and Hall have recently brought oat under the title of Paddy at Home, is a creditable piece of workman. ship, considering the short interval that has elapsed since the publics. lion of the original. The most serious difficulty with which Mr. Morton has had to contend has been the rendering back into English of conversations in which the author endeavoured to keep up the characteristic turns of expressions used by his interlocutors, and it cannot be said that he has been very successful in this respect. His attempt to reproduce the Irish dialect has resulted in a strange mongrel compromise, a sort of literary Transpontiue. To take one instance, no Irish peasant talks of "toddy." Where the Baron de Mandat-Granoey has erred, his mistakes have not been corrected. For example, on p. 151 we read that the Adair estate, famous for its celebrated eviction campaign, was in Queen's County, whereas it is in Donegal. Names misspelt in the French edition—e.g., " Gar- ranthaohill " for Carranthuohill—have been allowed to remain so. In the English version, such a perversion as "Stephen Green" is un- pardonable. The pictures, the weakest feature in the book, have been omitted; and in this sole particular the translation has an advantage over the original.