rary world owes to that ingenious writer a very high obligation for his excellent view of the progress of the dramatic art among the Greeks, and for the collection he has

Quarum ad eum sumptum reditus sufficiat,
Eo vitæ luxu permittunt frui :

Sin amplius impendat quam pro re sua,

Ne id porro faciat interdicitur.

Si non pareat, mulcta quidem plectitur.

Si sumptuose vivit qui nihil prorsus habet,

Traditur puniendus carnifici. B. Proh Hercules.

A. Quod enim scias, fieri minime potest

Ut qui eo est ingenio, non vivat improbe: itaque necessum.
Vel noctu grassantem obvios spoliare, vel effractarium pa-

rietem suffodere,

Vel his se furibus adjungere socium,

Aut delatorem et quadruplatorem esse in foro; aut falsum
Testari: à talium hominum genere purgatur civitas.

B. Recte, per Jovem : sed ad me quid hoc attinet?

A. Nos te videmus obsonantem quotidie

Haud mediocriter, vir optime, sed fastuose, et magnifice,
Ne pisciculum quidem habere licet caussa tua :
Cives nostros commisisti, pugnaturos de oleribus:

made of the remains of more than fifty of their comic poets *.

De apio dimicamus tanquam in Isthmiis,
Si lepus accessit, eum extemplo rapis.
Perdicem, ac turdum ne volantem quidem

Propter vos, ita me Jupiter amet, nobis jam videre licet,
Peregrini multum auxistis vini pretium.

* The greater part of the fragments translated by Mr Cumberland, are to be found in two separate works of Grotius, viz. Excerpta ex Tragediis et Commædiis Græcis, Paris, 1626, 4to; and Dicta Poetarum quæ apud Stobœum extant; Paris, 1623, 4to.

CHAP. VII.

Limitation of the Rule regarding the Imitation of Style.-This Imitation must be regulated by the Genius of Languages.— The Latin admits of a greater Brevity of Expression than the English ;-As does the French.-The Latin and Greek allow greater Inversions than the English,—And admit more freely of Ellipsis.

THE rule which enjoins to a translator the imitation of the style of the original author, demands several limitations.

1. THIS imitation must always be regulated by the nature of the genius of the languages of the original and of the transla tion.

M

THE Greek language, from the frequency and familiarity of ellipsis, allows a conciseness of expression which is scarcely attainable in any other tongue, and perhaps least of all in the English.

Ὁ μὲν ἐφ' ὅις δε, καὶ δις δὲ ὀργιζόμενος, ἔτι δὲ καὶ ὡς δεῖ, καὶ ὅτε, καὶ ὅσον χρόνον, ἐπαινεῖται.

ARISTOT.

To render this faithfully into English, it is impossible to use fewer words than the following: "He is to be commended, who is

angry with those persons whom he ought "to be angry with, and who is angry in such a manner, and at such proper time, and

only for so long a time, as the cause and "occasion justify."

THE Latin language, too, though iñ an inferior degree to the Greek, admits of a brevity, which cannot be successfully imitated in the English.

CICERO thus writes to Trebatius, (Lib. 7,

ep. 17.):