Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/187

 ris; etsi sus Minervam," Ep. ad Fam. 9. 18. The idiomatic phrase si vires, is capable of a perfect translation by a corresponding idiom; but that which occurs in the latter part of the sentence, etsi sus Minervam, can neither be translated by a corresponding idiom, nor yet literally. Mr Melmoth has thus happily expressed the sense of the whole passage:

"If you have any spirit then, fly hither, and learn from our elegant bills of fare how to refine your own; though, to do your talents justice, this is a sort of knowledge in which you are much superior to your instructors."—Pliny, in one of his epistles to Calvisius, thus addresses him, Assem para, et accipe auream fabulam: fabulas immo: nam me priorum nova admonuit, lib. 2. ep. 20. To this expression assem para, &c.