12
PRINCIPLES OF
Chap. I.
it is not only requisite that the ideas and sentiments of the original author should be conveyed, but likewise his style and manner of writing, which, it is supposed, cannot be done, without a strict attention to the arrangement of his sentences, and even to their order and construction[1]. According to the former idea of translation, it is allowable to improve and to embellish; according to the latter, it is necessary to preserve even blemishes and defects; and to these must likewise be superadded the harshness that must attend every copy in which the artist scrupulously studies to imitate the minutest lines or traces of his original.
As these two opinions form opposite extremes, it is not improbable that the
- ↑ Batteux de la Construction Orataire, Par. 2. ch. 4.
point
