Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.26
A Translation of the Seir Mutaqherin (Haji Mustafa) 42.26
- Language
- English
42.26.1
By the expression, wording of the text, do you mean your taking the whole work down, and hoisting up a new one of your own, or of your friend's, from the same materials? Or do you only intend to correct here and there errors of grammar and syntax, and bad arrangement? If the first, Sir, the work would become your own to all intents and purposes, and surely you would not have me put my name to it. Such an imposition would be quite out of character in me. But take care, Sir, such a wording, as you mean, would detract from the genuineness of the translation, and, of course, from the veracity and integrity of the intended evidence. But possibly you mean only to correct some imperfections which you think relative to grammar, syntax, or bad language; and I must answer as to the first, that with a language so very easy, and so very unincumbered with rules as the English, it would be a shame indeed in a man of some sense and knowledge, to need any one's corrections in either syntax or grammar, after thirty years' acquaintance with both. Those two articles are in every foreigner's power, and, let me tell you, are in general more attended to by Englishmen in France, and by a parity of reason, by foreigners amongst the English, than by the natives themselves. I inform you, Sir, that there may be no less than two thousand such faults in the first Volume, I say, either faults of grammar, or of syntax, or of punctuation.
42.26.2
But do you really believe that above ten or twenty of these can be mine? If you think so, please to do what neither you, nor any of those censorious readers of yours have done to this day. On finding an error of any kind, look at the errata, and you shall discover that the error has been taken up, and corrected; I mean those in grammar and syntax; for, those of punctuation would be numberless, and there would be no end of them. Moreover, on giving me a call, you shall find that every one of those corrections is in my hand. The question then arises, why, whilst so many works are printed tolerably well, (and only tolerably, for there is none perfect, not even the Gazette, and not even the weekly advertisements) my work happens to be teeming with faults? The answer is easy; and to my sorrow, I have had full time, and full opportunities to become master of it. The printers, like all mankind, will attend rather to their own concerns, happen what it will of those of others. No work within my knowledge in Calcutta has been tolerably printed, but where the author himself was the owner of the printing office or a partner; or where the printer had purchased the propriety of the work; or at least where he had been put upon his guard, by being made a sharer in the fate of the book to be printed, that is, by being promised for his trouble one-half of the author's profits. For such and the like undertakings, the printers give themselves pains;
42.26.3
and it is for these, and also for Gazettes, advertisements, and such daily lucrative jobs, that they reserve the two or three good hands that may be in a printing office. As to such wretches as we, who pay and must pay them by the sheets (be the printing what it will,) it is the least of their cares whether it be printed tolerably ill, or quite ill. Our work is made over to the apprentices; and on your scribbling very angry notes, they are carelessly answered, or even thrown by with the most supercilious inattention. But if you have been so ill advised as to pay the printers beforehand, as is my case, then rest assured that the -very least object of attention in their office, is your work. But I have been told by some persons, for instance, by the elegant translator of Sonnerat's Voyages (and he was concerned with the Printer), that I must correct a proof-sheet over and over two and three, and even four times, until it is printed perfect, and that I must send it back at each time, until it is returned printed to my mind. Well, Sir, all that has been done for sometime. And what was the consequence of that obstinacy on my part? That the Printer, who used to send me a proof-sheet or eight pages every Friday, and as much on Saturday, in order to have those sixteen pages printed off on Sunday morning, finding that the same sheet, by being returned over and over, encroached on the intended Saturday and Sunday, has sent me only one sheet a week;
42.26.4
and as my corrections engrossed the two days and-a-half, set apart for me in the week, so the two sheets, that were to be furnished this week, were reduced to only one; and this one, after having consumed the Friday and Saturday of this week, encroached also on the two like days of the next week. Thus, Sir, the printer, who was under an engagement to me to print and complete the two first volumes on or before the 24th of December last, had not delivered by that time so much as one-half of the first volume; and he, who had obliged himself under a penalty, and for a pecuniary addition to the accustomed price, to deliver me the third volume on the 20th September, did not deliver it sooner than the 20th January, and that too after having made me sign his bill. But I ought to have prosecuted him. Well, Sir, if I file a bill against him by that 20th September, the law-suit is likely to last a couple of years at least; (for Lawyers have sworn to find not only flaws but even capital nullities in whatever bonds or papers they have not drawn themselves); and meanwhile, my work, which I intended to send to England in that very September, or at least in October following, or at least in November, or at least in December, or as a last resource, in January; my work, I say, shall meanwhile remain at stand. But still at the end of that January, I went to law;
42.26.5
and to render the charges as moderate as possible, I drew up my own case in one page, argued it in two more, added four pages of vouchers and copies of letters, and carried the whole to an Attorney, desiring him to present the whole as it was to M. such a one, an advocate, for his opinion. In a few days more I thought it full as well to prosecute another printer, sensible that joining the two causes would have a tendency towards diminishing the charges. Unfortunately this intended prosecution having taken vent, the printer lessened my usual allowance of oats, and sent for excuse that he could not go on with the work, as his foreman and two apprentices had run away with a vast quantity of types. Fain I was then to suspend the prosecution, and at last to drop it entirely. In a couple of months more, I received two Attorney's bills of 192 and 178 Rs., in all 370 Rs. I ran to my Attorney's. "Pray, Sir, why that charge of 20 Rs. for drawing up my case? and why that other of 45 for copying my papers? I brought them ready copied; and as to my case, I am not satisfied with your statement of it. It is clearer by all means in my own narrative (a great pause here), at least it must be so, I conceive (did I add, after some recollection);
42.26.6
for as you may, for ought I know, have twenty such cases to attend to, and I have but this one, there is no wonder in my having better seized the Gordian knot in a subject of which I am a thorough master." Answer: Sir, your case was defective in law-terms; and as to your papers, they were not legible enough. "Sir, I will submit it to any man, whether this is not a fair hand, and that of your clerk's a very ordinary one." Answer: May be — but it is too small and an advocate will not pore over such a minute hand. In short, after a little dissertation, I paid the bill; and guessing at the lengths to which I would have been carried for instituting a law-suit, by the expenses I was put to for not instituting it, I went home, and took for devise: "Poor author, bear and forbear! this is thy fate. In Moor-shood-abad, in order to gain a law-suit, you must pay six per cent, of it to Government, and fifty or sixty per cent, more to Moonshies and Divans. At Calcutta, Moonshies and Divans are out of question; but still the fifty per cent, must be paid to Lawyers. Bear then and forbear!"