ed to the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ quotes the high authority of Dryden as to the course which
should be followed in the execution of an ideal translation.

A translator (Dryden writes) that would write with any force or
spirit of an original must never dwell on the words of his author.
He ought to possess himself entirely, and perfectly comprehend the
genius and sense of his author, the nature of the subject, and the
terms of the art or subject treated of; and then he will express
himself as justly, and with as much life, as if he wrote an
original; whereas he who copies word for word loses all the spirit
in the tedious transfusion.

In the application of Dryden's canon a distinction has to be made
between prose and verse. The composition of good prose, which Coleridge
described as "words in the right order," is, indeed, of the utmost
importance for all the purposes of the historian, the writer on
philosophy, or the orator. An example of the manner in which fine prose
can bring to the mind a vivid conception of a striking event is Jeremy
Collier's description of Cranmer's death, which excited the enthusiastic
admiration of Mr. Gladstone.[24] He seemed [Collier wrote] "to repel the
force of the fire and to overlook the torture, by strength of thought."
Nevertheless, the main object of the prose writer, and still more of the
orator, should be to state his facts or to prove his case. Cato laid
down the very sound principle "rem tene, verba sequentur," and
Quintilian held that "no speaker, when important interests are involved,
should be very solicitous about his words." It is true that this
principle is one that has been more often honoured in the breach than
the observance. Lucian, in his _Lexiphanes_,[25] directs the shafts of
his keen satire against the meticulous attention to phraseology
practised by his contemporaries. Cardinal Bembo sacrificed substance to
form to the extent of advising young men not to read St. Paul for fear
that their style should be injured, and Professor Saintsbury[26]
mentions the case of a French author, Paul de Saint-Victor, who "used,
when sitting down to write, to put words that had struck his fancy at
intervals over the sheet, and write his matter in and up to them." These
are instances of that word-worship run mad which has not infrequently
led to dire results, inasmuch as it has tended to engender the belief
that statesmanship is synonymous with