Homer, and that the matter not found in me, how much soever he may admire it, is found only in Mr. Pope. I have omitted nothing; I have invented nothing.
There is indisputably a wide difference between the case of an original writer in rhime and a translator. In an original work the author is free; if the rhime be of difficult attainment, and he cannot find it in one direction, he is at liberty to seek it in another; the matter that will not accommodate itself to his occasions he may discard, adopting such as will. But in a translation no such option is allowable; the sense of the author is required, and we do not surrender it willingly even to the plea of necessity. Fidelity is indeed of the very essence of translation, and the term itself implies it. For which reason, if we suppress the sense of our original, and force into its place our own, we may call our work an imitation, if we please, or perhaps a paraphrase, but it is no longer the same author only in a different dress, and therefore it is not translation. Should a painter, professing to draw the likeness of a beautiful woman, give her more or fewer features than belong to her, and a general cast of countenance of his own invention, he might be said to have produced a jeu d'esprit, a curiosity perhaps in its way, but by no means the lady in question.
It will however be necessary to speak a little more largely to this subject, on which discordant opinions prevail even among good judges.
The
