Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/39

 the sense of an author is doubtful, and where more than one meaning can be given to the same passage or expression, (which, by the way, is always a defect in composition), the translator is called upon to exercise his judgement, and to select that meaning which is most consonant to the train of thought in the whole passage, or to the author's usual mode of thinking, and of expressing himself. To imitate the obscurity or ambiguity of the original is a fault; and it is still a greater, to give more than one meaning, as D'Alembert has done in the beginning of the Preface of Tacitus. The original runs thus: Urbem Romam a principio Reges habuere. Libertatem et consulatum L. Brutus instituit. Dictaturæ ad tempus sumebantur: neque Decemviralis potestas ultra biennium, neque