Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/64

 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 shall he never perform what he attempts; for it is not his business alone to translate language into language, but poetic into poesie; and poesie is of so subtle a spirit, that in pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit is not added. in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum." Denham's Preface to the 2d book of Virgil's Æneid.

poetical translation, the English Writers of the 16th, and the greatest part of the 17th century, seem to have had no other care than (in Denham's phrase) to