grand climacteric! so little influence it seems, age had over him, that
he retained his judgment and fire in full force to the last. Mr. Pope in
his preface to Homer says, if Dryden had lived to finish what he began
of Homer, he, (Mr. Pope) would not have attempted it after him,
'No more, says he, than I would his Virgil, his version of whom
(notwithstanding some human errors) is the most noble and spirited
translation I know in any language.'

Dr. Trap charges Mr. Dryden with grossly mistaking his author's sense in
many places; with adding or retrenching as his turn is best served with
either; and with being least a translator where he shines most as a
poet; whereas it is a just rule laid down by lord Roscommon, that a
translator in regard to his author should

"Fall as he falls, and as he rises rise"

Mr. Dryden, he tells us, frequently acts the very reverse of this
precept, of which he produces some instances; and remarks in general,
that the first six books of the Æneis, which are the best and most
perfect in the original, are the least so in the translation. Dr. Trap's
remarks may possibly be true; but in this he is an instance how easy it
is to discover faults in other men's works, and how difficult to avoid
them in our own.

Dr. Trap's translation is close, and conveys the author's meaning
literally, so consequently may be fitter for a school-boy, but men of
riper judgment, and superior taste, will hardly approve it; if Dryden's
is the most spirited of any translation, Trap's is the dullest that ever
was written; which proves that none but a good poet is fit to translate
the works of a good poet.