The wit of Romans; and their lofty sense
Degrade into new poems made from thence,
Disguise old Rome in our new eloquence.

Aesculape shares the opinion of Acer.

And thought it fit wits should be more confined
To author's sense, and to their periods too,
Must leave out nothing, every sense must do,
And though they cannot render verse for verse,
Yet every period's sense they must rehearse.

Finally Metellus, speaking for the group, orders Laelius, one of their
number, to translate the Fourth Book of the _Aeneid_, keeping himself in
due subordination to Virgil.

We all bid then translate it the old way
Not a-la-mode, but like George Sandys or May;
Show Virgil's every period, not steal sense
To make up a new-fashioned poem thence.

Other translators, though not defending the literal method, do not
advocate imitation. Roscommon, in the _Essay on Translated Verse_,
demands fidelity to the substance of the original when he says,

The genuine sense, intelligibly told,
Shows a translator both discreet and bold.
Excursions are inexpiably bad,
And 'tis much safer to leave out than add,

but, unlike Phaer, he forbids the omission of difficult passages:

Abstruse and mystic thoughts you must express,
With painful care and seeming easiness.

Dryden considers the whole situation in detail.[404] He admires Cowley's
_Pindaric Odes_ and admits that both Pindar and his translator do not
come under ordinary rules, but he fears the effect of Cowley's example
"when writers of unequal parts to him shall imitate so bold an
undertaking," and believes that only a poet so "wild and ungovernable"
as Pindar justifies the method of Cowley. "If Virgil, or Ovid, or any
regular intelligible authors be thus used, 'tis no longer to be called
their work, when neither the thoughts nor words are drawn from the
original; but instead of them there is something new produced, which is
almost the creation of another hand.... He who is inquisitive to know an
author's thoughts will be disappointed in his expectation; and 'tis not
always that a man will be contented to have a present made him, when he
expects the payment of a debt. To state it fairly; imitation is the most
advantageous way for a translator to show himself, but the greatest
wrong which can be done to the memory and reputation of the dead."

Though imitation was not generally accepted as a standard method of
tran