Fors Clavigera (Volume 5-6); Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1886. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. I. The following communication was sent to me on a post card, without the writer's name; but it is worth notice: -- "' Ut et corda nostra mandatis tuis dedita.' If some manuscript Breviary has omitted 'dedita, ' it must be by a slip of the pen. The sense surely is this: that while there is either war or only an evil and deceitful peace within, self-surrender to the Divine commandments above and freedom from terror of foes around are alike impossible. "In the English Prayer-book' set' has the same meaning as in Psalm lxxviii. ver. 9 (sic: the writer means ver. 8); and the context shows the 'rest and quietness' desired to be rest and quietness of spirit." The ' context' cannot show anything of the sort, for the sentence is an entirely independent one: and the MS. I use is not a Breviary, but the most perfect Psalter and full service, including all the hymns quoted by Dante, that I have seen in English thirteenth-century writing. The omission of the word ' dedita' makes not the smallest difference to the point at issue--which is not the mistranslation of a word, but the breaking of a clause. The mistranslation nevertheless exists also; precisely because, in the English Prayerbook, ' set' lias the same meaning as in Psalm lxxviii.; where the Latin word i3 'direxit, ' not 'dedit'; and where discipline is meant, not surrender. I must reserve my comments on the two most important letters next following, for large type and more leisure. II. "I hope that you will live to see Fors and everything printed without steam: it's the very curse and unmaking of us. I can see it dreadfully in every workman that I come across. Since I have been so happily mixed up with you these eighteen years, great changes have taken place in workmen. It was beginn...