CHAP. IV.
Of the freedom allowed in Poetical Translation.—Progress of Poetical translation in England.—B. Jonson, Sandys, Fanshaw, Dryden.—Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse.—Pope's Homer.
The liberty of adding or retrenching is more peculiarly allowable in poetical than in prose translations, "I conceive it," says Sir John Denham, "a vulgar error in translating Poets, to affect being fidus interpres. Let that care"be