Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/133

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118
PRINCIPLES OF
Chap. VII.

c. 2. Cum cæteri nobilium, quanto quis servitio promptior, opibus et honoribus extollerentur: the translator, too studious of brevity, has not given the complete idea of his author, "Le reste des nobles trouvoit dans les richesses et dans les honneurs la récompense de l'esclavage."

Omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset, Tac. hist. 1. 49. "Digne de l'empire au jugement de tout le monde tant qu'il ne regna pas." This is not the idea of the author; for Tacitus does not mean to say that Galba was judged worthy of the empire till he attained to it; but that all the world would have thought him worthy of the empire if he had never attained to it.

2. The Latin and Greek languages admit of inversions which are inconsistent with the genius of the English.

Mr