Note 10 — PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF OVID'S EPISTLES.[2]

Sir John Denham gives his opinion on this subject in the preface to "The Destruction of Troy;" which he does not venture to call a translation, but "an Essay on the second book of Virgil's Æneis."—"I conceive it is a vulgar error, in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres; let that care be with them who deal in matters of fact, or matters of faith; but whosoever aims at it in poetry, as he attempts what is not required, so he shall never perform what he attempts: for it is not his business alone to translate language into language, but poesy into poesy; and poesy is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words; and whosoever offers at verbal translation, shall have the misfortune of that young traveller, who lost his own language abroad, and brought home no other instead of it; for the grace of the Latin will be lost by being turned into English words, and the grace of the English by being turned into the Latin phrase."