English version of the Traveller’s record.
[Sidenote: Text followed by Marsden and by Pauthier.]
Ramusio’s recension was that which Marsden selected for translation.
But at the date of his most meritorious publication nothing was known
of the real literary history of Polo’s Book, and no one was aware of
the peculiar value and originality of the French manuscript texts, nor
had Marsden seen any of them. A translation from one of those texts is
a translation at first hand; a translation from Ramusio’s Italian is,
as far as I can judge, the translation of a translated compilation from
two or more translations, and therefore, whatever be the merits of its
matter, inevitably carries us far away from the spirit and style of
the original narrator. M. Pauthier, I think, did well in adopting for
the text of his edition the MSS. which I have classed as of the second
Type, the more as there had hitherto been no publication from those
texts. But editing a text in the original language, and translating,
are tasks substantially different in their demands.
[Sidenote: Eclectic formation of the English Text of this Translation.]