exposition of progressive contemporary notions of the art. The belief in
literal translation which characterizes Jonson and Marvell in the
earlier years of the century had been displaced by the more liberal
concept of "imitation." Roscommon is a representative of this freer
attitude, while Dryden's more severe theory of "paraphrase," whatever
his practice may have been, stands somewhere between the two positions.
Like Ozell and Gildon, and later Pope, Echard's aim, whether translating
by himself or collectively, was to imitate the spirit of his author in
English. "A meer _Verbal Translation_ is not to be expected, that wou'd
sound so horribly, and be more obscure than the Original . . . . We
couldn't have kept closer . . . without too much treading upon the
Author's Heels, and destroying our Design of giving it an easie, _Comick
Style_, most agreeable to our present Times" (_Terence's Comedies_,
p. xx). To this end it was necessary to tone down the "familiarity and
bluntness in [Terence's] Discourse" which were "not so agreeable with
the Manners and Gallantry of our Times." This was intended to bring
Terence up to the level of gentility for which he was credited by
compensating for the barbarity of Roman social manners. But the
translation was willing to go further than this: it added to the Roman
comedy what Echard thought English comedy excelled in, "humour"-- "In
some places we have had somewhat more of _Humour_ than the Original, to
make it still more agreeable to our Age . . . ." (_ibid._, p. xxii).
When speaking for himself alone in the Preface to the _Plautus_,
Echard's claims were less grandiose. Here the translation seems much
more specifically aimed at schoolboys, and Echard made firm claims for
his literalness (sig. b1-2v). On the other hand, he went out of his way
to praise Dryden's _Amphitryon_ (1690) for the freedom it had taken with
the original, which, said Echard, "may serve for one Instance of what
Improvements our Modern Poets have made on the Ancients, when they built
upon their Foundations" (sig. b3v-4).

The praise of Dryden is to some extent double-edged since it is an
implicit assertion of the point made in both Prefaces, that English
writers had much to learn from the Roman dramatists. Echard uses the
Prefaces to assess and compare Plautus and Terence, but he also uses
them as a springboard for a critique of the state of English comedy.
Like much neoclassical criticism it is, of course, derivat