Antient Authors (when they are translated) suffer in nothing more,
than in having the Manners and Customs, to which they allude,
transformed into the Manners and Customs of the present Age. By this
Liberty, or rather Licenciousness of Translators, Authors not only
appear in a different Dress, but they become unlike themselves, by
losing that peculiar and distinctive Character in which they excel.
This is most palpable in those Authors, whose Character consists in
_Humour_. Let any one read _Terence_, as he is translated by Mr.
_Echard_, and he will take him to have been a Buffoon: Whereas
_Terence_ never dealt in such a Kind of low Mirth. His true Character
is, to have afforded to his Spectators and Readers the gravest, and,
at the same Time, the most agreeable, most polite Entertainment of
any antient Author now extant. This is, in some Measure, the Case of
_Theophrastus:_ He has been transformed; and he has suffer'd in the
Transformation. What I have endeavoured is, to do him that Justice
which, I think, he has not hitherto met with, by preserving the native
Simplicity of his Characters, by retaining those antient Manners and
Customs which he alludes to, and keeping up the peculiar _Humour_ of
the Original as nearly, as the Difference of Language wou'd allow.
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