I have done with the Original, and shall make no Excuse for the Length of the Preface, because it is in the Power of the Reader to make it as short as he pleases. I shall now conclude with a Word or two about the Version.
Translation is commonly either Verbal, or Paraphrase, or Imitation; of the first is Mr. Sands's, which I think the Metamorphoses can by no means allow of. It is agreed, the Author left it unfinish'd; if it had undergone his last Hand, it is more than probable, that many Superfluities had been retrench'd. Where a Poem is perfectly finish'd; the Translation, with regard to particular Idioms, cannot be too exact; by doing this, the Sense of the Author is more entirely his own, and the Cast of the Periods more faithfully preserv'd: But where a Poem is tedious through Exuberance, or dark through a hasty Brevity, I think the Translator may be excus'd for doing what the Author upon revising, wou'd have done himself.
If Mr. Sands had been of this Opinion, perhaps other Translations of the Metamorphoses had not been attempted.
A Critick has observ'd, that in his Version of this Book, he has scrupulously confin'd the Number of his Lines to those of the Original. 'Tis fit I should take the Summ upon Content, and be better bred, than to count after him.
The Manner that seems most suited for this present Undertaking, is neither to follow the Author too close out of a Critical Timorousness;
