But it is one thing to take pains on a
fragment and translate it perfectly, and another thing to have the
weight of a whole author on my shoulders. They who believe the
burden light, let them attempt the fourth, sixth, or eighth
Pastoral; the first or fourth Georgic; and, amongst the AEneids, the
fourth, the fifth, the seventh, the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh,
or the twelfth, for in these I think I have succeeded best.
Long before I undertook this work I was no stranger to the original.
I had also studied Virgil's design, his disposition of it, his
manners, his judicious management of the figures, the sober
retrenchments of his sense, which always leaves somewhat to gratify
our imagination, on which it may enlarge at pleasure; but, above
all, the elegance of his expressions and the harmony of his numbers.
For, as I have said in a former dissertation, the words are in
poetry what the colours are in painting. If the design be good, and
the draft be true, the colouring is the first beauty that strikes
the eye.
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