as handling the material, I incline to conclude that he is himself the original composer, and that his reference to translation signifies his use of Augustine's books, from which he translates whole passages."[38] In a case like this it is evidently impossible to draw dogmatic conclusions. It may be that Capgrave is using the word "translate" with medieval looseness, but it is also possible that some of the comment expressed in the first person is translated comment, and the editor adds that, though the balance of probability is against it, "it is still possible that a Latin life may have been used." Occasionally, it is true, comment is stamped unmistakably as belonging to the English translator. The translator of a _Canticum de Creatione_ declares that there were --fro the incarnacioun of Jhesu Til this rym y telle yow Were turned in to englisch, A thousand thre hondred & seventy And fyve yere witterly. Thus in bok founden it is.[39] Such unquestionably _English_ additions are, unfortunately, rare and the situation remains confused. But this is not the only difficulty which confronts the reader. He searches with disappointing results for such general and comprehensive statements of the medieval translator's theory as may aid in the interpretation of detail. Such statements are few, generally late in date, and, even when not directly translated from a predecessor, are obviously repetitions of the conventional rule associated with the name of Jerome and adopted in Anglo-Saxon times by Alfred and Aelfric. An early fifteenth-century translator of the _Secreta Secretorum_, for example, carries over into English the preface of the Latin translator: "I have translated with great travail into open understanding of Latin out of the language of Araby ... sometimes expounding letter by letter, and sometimes understanding of understanding, for other manner of speaking is with Arabs and other with Latin."[40] Lydgate makes a similar statement: I wyl translate hyt sothly as I kan, After the lettre, in ordre effectuelly. Thogh I not folwe the wordes by & by, I schal not faille teuching the substance.[41] Osbern Bokenam declares that he has translated Not wurde for wurde--for that ne may be In no translation, aftyr Jeromys decree-- But fro sentence to sentence.[42]