| The translation of Poetry from one language into another, at the best of times an arduous undertaking, has been here in some instances peculiarly such. Independently that didactic poems are of all others the dullest, and consequently requiring much labour to make them, in any degree, pleasing, the Translator has found in the original of the following work whole passages literally taken from some of the best of our British Poets\ ; as from Pope's Windsor Forest, Goldsmith's Deserted Village, Denham's Cooper's Hill, Thomson's Seasons, and Shenstone's Schoolmistress, in the first Canto\ ; and in the fourth again from Pope's Essays on Criticism. For these passages, therefore, the Translator must request the Critic's indulgence ; in all others he by no means wishes to deprecate a candid and impartial examination\ ; but rather desires that, after this, his first attempt, he may have certain beacons held out to him by the hand of skill and experience, by which he may hereafter learn to direct his course, if again he should venture upon a similar voyage[(//Id//., p.\ !!vii-viii!!.)]. | The translation of Poetry from one language into another, at the best of times an arduous undertaking, has been here in some instances peculiarly such. Independently that didactic poems are of all others the dullest, and consequently requiring much labour to make them, in any degree, pleasing, the Translator has found in the original of the following work whole passages literally taken from some of the best of our British Poets\ ; as from Pope's Windsor Forest, Goldsmith's Deserted Village, Denham's Cooper's Hill, Thomson's Seasons, and Shenstone's Schoolmistress, in the first Canto\ ; and in the fourth again from Pope's Essays on Criticism. For these passages, therefore, the Translator must request the Critic's indulgence ; in all others he by no means wishes to deprecate a candid and impartial examination\ ; but rather desires that, after this, his first attempt, he may have certain beacons held out to him by the hand of skill and experience, by which he may hereafter learn to direct his course, if again he should venture upon a similar voyage[(John Maunde, //The Rural Philosopher/…/, p.\ !!vii-viii!!.)]. |