scribed, evaluated and practised.

To summarize, Dryden wrote as follows in his Preface to the 1680
edition of _Ovid's Epistles_, Translated by Several Hands:

All translation I suppose may be reduced to these three
heads:

First, that of Metaphrase, or turning an Author word by
word, and line by line, from one language to another.... The
second way is that of Paraphrase, or Translation with
Latitude, where the Author is kept in view by the
Translator, so as never to be lost, but his words are not so
strictly follow'd as his sense, and that too is admitted to
be amplyfied, but not alter'd.... The Third way is that of
Imitation, where the Translator (if now [i.e. by taking such
liberties] he has not lost that name) assumes the liberty
not only to vary from the words and sence, but to forsake
them both as he sees occasion: and taking only some general
hints from the Original, to run division on the ground-work,
as he pleases....

Doubtless, he refers to the translation of verse into verse, but
actually verse-into-prose also falls within Dryden's "third way." When
the author of the Preface to _The Lover's Assistant_ speaks of it as
an "undertaking" in translation, he means prose imitation, or
paraphrase of verse.

Earlier, in the 1743 _Miscellanies_, Fielding had published "Part of
Juvenal's Sixth Satire Modernized in Burlesque [i.e. Hudibrastic]
Verse." The modernization, as in his _Art of Love_, was of place
(England instead of Italy) as well as time, and allowed the author to
satirize some of his contemporaries, as well as the customs of his own
age.

When, four years later, he turned to the first book of Ovid's _Artis
Amatoriae_, he found prose an even better medium for "Imitation," or
"Modernization." The result is a most enjoyable _pot pourri_ of Roman
mythology and eighteenth century social customs, combined with some of
the patriotism left over from Fielding's anti-Jacobinism during the
Forty-Five. His devotion to, and constant use of, the classics has
excited comment from every Fielding biographer since his own time. His
works abound in classical instances, references and imitations; and
most of his writing includes translations from Greek or Roman authors.
His library, as Austin Dobson observed, was rich in editions of the
classics.

Curiously, the sale catalogue lists only one, unidentifiable, Ovid
item, as contrasted with 5 ed