_University of Minnesota_
Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
James Sutherland, _University College, London_
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

INTRODUCTION

Perhaps no higher praise can be paid a translator than posterity's
acceptance of his work. Laurence Echard's _Terence's Comedies_, first
printed in 1694 in the dress and phraseology of Restoration comedy, has
received this accolade through the mediation of no less a modern
translator than Robert Graves. In 1963 Graves edited a translation of
three of Terence's plays. His Foreword points to the extreme difficulty
of translating Terence, and admits his own failure-- "It is regrettable
that the very terseness of his Latin makes an accurate English rendering
read drily and flatly; as I have found to my disappointment." Graves's
answer was typically idiosyncratic. "A revival of Terence in English,
must, I believe, be based on the translation made . . . . with
fascinating vigour, by a young Cambridge student Laurence Echard
. . . ."[1]

The Prefaces to Echard's _Terence's Comedies: Made English_ . . . .
(1694) and to his _Plautus's Comedies, Amphitryon, Epidicus, and Rudens_
(1694) are of interest for several reasons. Both of them outline the
intentions and rationale which lie behind the translations. They also
throw light upon the sense of literary rivalry with French achievements
which existed in some quarters in late seventeenth-century England, make
comments on the contemporary stage, and are valuable both as examples of
seventeenth-century attitudes to two Classical dramatists, and as
statements of neoclassical dramatic theory. Finally, they are, to some
extent, polemical pieces, aiming at the instruction of contemporary
dramatists.

Laurence Echard, or Eachard (1670?-1730), was a minor cleric, a prolific
hack, and an historian, a typical enough confusion of functions for the
time. It suggests that Echard had energy, ability, and political
commitment, but lacked a generous patron or good fortune to take the
place of private means. Within the Church his success was modest: he was
installed prebendary of Louth in 1697, but had to wait until 1712 before
becoming Archdeacon of Stow. Echard achieved the little fame by which he
is remembered as an his