Gladstone was a famous debater in the Oxford Union, as is
well known, and was undoubtedly in the habit of writing translations
from Greek and Latin, of which he was always so passionately
fond. He says in his paper on Arthur Hallam that the Eton
debating club known as the Society supplied the British Empire
with four Prime Ministers in fourscore years.
The value of the practice of translation from Latin or Greek
into English, in getting command of good English style, in
my judgment, can hardly be stated too strongly. The explanation
is not hard to find. You have in these two languages and
especially in Latin, the best instrument for the most precise
and most perfect expression of thought. The Latin prose of
Tacitus and Cicero, the verse of Virgil and Horace, are like
a Greek statue, or an Italian cameo--you have not only exquisite
beauty, but also exquisite precision. You get the thought
into your mind with the accuracy and precision of the words
that express numbers in the multiplication table. Ten times
one are ten--not ten and one one-millionth. Having got the
idea into your mind with the precision, accuracy, and beauty
of the Latin expression, you are to get its equivalent in
English.
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