It is this incalculable quality in creative work that has made theorizing on the methods of translation more than a mere academic exercise. Forced to adjust itself to the facts of actual production, theory has had to follow new paths as literature has followed new paths, and in the process it has acquired fresh vigor and flexibility. Even as we leave the period of Pope, we can see the dull inadequacy of a worn-out collection of rules giving way before the honest, individual approach of Cowper. "Many a fair precept in poetry," says Dryden apropos of Roscommon's rules for translation, "is like a seeming demonstration in the mathematics, very specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanic operation."[461] Confronted by such discrepancies, the theorist has again and again had to modify his "specious" rules, with the result that the theory of translation, though a small, is yet a living and growing element in human thought. FOOTNOTES: [365] _Preface to the Reader_, in _The Natural History of C. Plinius Secundus_, London, 1601. [366] _Dedication_, in _Ovid's Metamorphosis, Englished by G. S._, London, 1640. [367] _Dedication_, in _The Poems of Horace rendered into Verse by Several Persons_, London, 1666. [368] _Juvenal and Persius_, translated by Barten Holyday, Oxford, 1673 (published posthumously). [369] _Dedication of the Aeneis_, in _Essays of John Dryden_, ed. W. P. Ker, v. 2, p. 235. [370] _Postscript to the Reader_, _Essays_, v. 2, p. 243. [371] _Rowe_, in _Lives of the Poets_, Dublin, 1804, p. 284. [372] _The Argument_, in _The Passion of Dido for Aeneas_, translated by Edmund Waller and Sidney Godolphin, London, 1658. [373] _Dedication_, in _Translations of Horace_. John Hanway, 1730. [374] _Dedication_, dated 1728, reprinted in _The English Poets_, London, 1810, v. 20. [375] _Preface_ to _The Destruction of Troy_, in Denham, _Poems and Translations_, London, 1709. [376] _To the courteous not curious reader._ [377] Comment on Trapp's "blank version" of Virgil, in _Life of Dryden_. [378] _Preface to Sylvae_, _Essays_, v. 1, p. 266. [379] _Dedication of the Aeneis_, _Essays_, v. 2, p. 236. [380] In _Du Bartas, His Divine Words and Works_, translated by Sylvester, London, 1641. [381] Lines by E. G., same edition. [382] Same edition, p. 322. [383] _An Essay on Translated Verse._ [384] _Dedication of the Aeneis_, _Essays_, v. 2, p. 220. [385] P. 222. [386] _To the worthy reader._ [387] _To the courteous not curious reader_, in _The XII. Aeneids of Virgil_, 1632. [388] Preface to _The Destruction of Troy_. [389] Dedication of _The Poems of Horace_. [390] _To the Reader_, in _The First Book of Virgil's Aeneis_, London, 1688. [391] Reprinted in _Godfrey of Bulloigne_, translated by Fairfax, New York, 1849. [392] _Essays_, v. 2, p. 249. [393] _Essays_, v. 2, p. 14. [394] Sprat, _Life of Cowley_, in _Prose Works of Abraham Cowley_, London, 1826.