ainst the prevailing methods of translators.
Trapp and Brady, both of whom early in the century attempted blank verse
renderings of the _Aeneid_, justify their use of this form on the ground
that it permits greater faithfulness to the original. Brady intends to
avoid the rock upon which other translators have split, "and that seems
to me to be their translating this noble and elegant poet into rhyme; by
which they were sometimes forced to abandon the sense, and at other
times to cramp it very much, which inconveniences may probably be
avoided in blank verse."[438] Trapp makes a more violent onslaught upon
earlier translations, which he finds "commonly so very licentious that
they can scarce be called so much as paraphrases," and presents the
employment of blank verse as in some degree a remedy for this. "The
fetters of rhyme often cramp the expression and spoil the verse, and so
you can both translate more closely and also more fully express the
spirit of your author without it than with it."[439] Neither version
however was kindly received, and though there continued to be occasional
efforts to break away from what Warton calls "the Gothic shackles of
rhyme"[440] or from the oversmoothness of Augustan verse, the more
popular translators set the stamp of their approval on the couplet in
its classical perfection. Grainger, who translated Tibullus, discusses
the possibility of using the "alternate" stanza, but ends by saying that
he has generally "preferred the heroic measure, which is not better
suited to the lofty sound of the epic muse than to the complaining tone
of the elegy."[441] Hoole chooses the couplet for his version of
Ariosto, because it occupies the same place in English that the octave
stanza occupies in Italian, and because it is capable of great variety.
"Of all the various styles used by the best poets," he says, "none seems
so well adapted to the mixed and familiar narrative as that of Dryden in
his last production, known by the name of his _Fables_, which by their
harmony, spirit, ease, and variety of versification, exhibit an
admirable model for a translation of Ariosto."[442] It was, however, to
the regularity of Pope's couplet that most translators aspired. Francis,
the translator of Horace, who succeeded in pleasing his readers in spite
of his failure to conform with popular standards, puts the situation
well in a comment which recalls a similar utterance of Dryden. "The
misfortune of our translators