Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/189

 and is lost in every other language where the same precise idiom does not occur:

We say in English, Tis not worth a fig;" or, tis not worth a farthing;" but we cannot say, as the French do, Tis not worth the devil;" and therefore the epigram cannot be translated into English.

of the same nature are the following lines of Marot; in his Epitre au Roi, where the merit lies in the ludicrous naiveté of the last line,