Les excès se touchent

12:10 Apr 27, 2014 

Good plan!

12:07 Apr 27, 2014 

Good that we've given her some choice!
Btw, I'm tempted to get hold of that Oxford dictionary, it looks very appealing, useful and interesting for both translating and writing...

11:45 Apr 27, 2014 

That's interesting. I don't know the proverb thus worded, but it looks authoritative enough. That said, I guess our OP will need to choose something that fits the register of the translation. Both our solutions would work. Good to learn something new!

11:32 Apr 27, 2014 

Sounds pretty expert to me! :-)
In response to your answer below and quest for 18th century English, I just checked the origin of the "extremes meet" proverb, and The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable gives it as being recorded in the mid-18th century in England, earlier in France:
http://books.google.fr/books?id=Urg3hNc4tu0C&pg=PT581&lpg=PT...

11:24 Apr 27, 2014 

I don't live far from Stowe, I'm very interested in landscapes like these and their meanings, and I did see a programme on TV about Stowe only in the last few days!! But no real expertise, I'm afraid.

11:18 Apr 27, 2014 

What impressive expertise you have in this area! Your explanation of the context sounds very feasible, and I think you're right, that he was criticizing what he saw as excess in different areas of design - and he makes use of a proverb to do so.

10:24 Apr 27, 2014 

Most of the major changes by William Kent, et al were made in the first half of the 1700s. This man is unlikely to have known the place before the changes started but he would certainly have heard of the famous ongoing works there. IF this is the context then I would think he is talking about the design of the gardens, a shift from a Renaissance style to a fully-blown Classical one, and then later on to a typical English Landscape style. He seems to see a loss of diction in stylistic terms, seeing one excess after another in the design.

10:14 Apr 27, 2014 

Major changes were made to the landscaping at Stowe at various points and were innovatory. Is he responding to those alterations? Without context and surrounding text, this sentence doesn't make much sense or is impenetrable.