"It is almost impossible to translate verbally, and well, at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word, which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. It is frequent, also, that the conceit is couched in some expression which will be lost in English-- 'Aque iidem venti vela fidemque ferent.' What poet of our nation is so happy as to express this thought literally in English, and to strike wit, or almost sense, out of it? "In short, the verbal copier is encumbered with so many difficulties at once, that he can never disentangle himself from them all. He is to consider, at the same time, the thought of his author, and his words, and to find out the counterpart to each in another language; and besides this, he is to confine himself to the compass of numbers, and the slavery of rhyme. It is much like dancing on ropes with fettered legs; a man may shun a fall by using caution, but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected; and when we have said the best of it, it is but a foolish task, for no sober man would put himself into a danger for the applause of escaping without breaking his neck. We see Ben Jonson could not avoid obscurity in his literal translation of Horace, attempted in the same compass of lines; nay, Horace himself could scarce have done it to a Greek poet, 'Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio:' either perspicuity or gracefulness will frequently be wanting. Horace has, indeed, avoided both these rocks in his translation of the three first lines of Homer's _Odyssey_, which he has contracted into two:-- 'Dic mihi, musa, virum, captae post tempora Trojae Qui mores hominum multorum vidit, et urbes. 'Muse, speak the man, who, since the siege of Troy, So many towns, such change of manners saw.' But then the sufferings of Ulysses, which are a considerable part of that sentence, are omitted-- [Greek: Hos mala polla Plachthe.]