distortion.

Warton has not exaggerated the defects of Statius, but he has underrated
his merits. The descriptions in the Thebais are vivid, and abound in
picturesque circumstances, and natural traits of character. Pope's
translation is more vague. His narrative is less perspicuous, less
dramatic, less spirited, and less life-like than the original. "There
are numberless particulars blameworthy in our author," Pope wrote to
Cromwell, "which I have tried to soften in the version."[14] He was not
successful in this attempt. Where he departs from his text he seldom
tempers an extravagance, and has more often rejected a beauty, or
smoothed it down into insipidity. His juvenile taste was for polished
generalities, and he shunned circumstantial nature. He had still less
relish for primitive simplicity, and he thought that some of the
incidents in the Thebais were too humble to be endured.

"When Statius," he says, "comes to the scene of his poem, and the prize
in dispute between the brothers, he gives us a very mean opinion of
it,--_pugna est de paupere regno_--very different from the conduct of
his master, Virgil, who at the entrance of his poem informs the reader
of the greatness of his subject."[15] Pope was led astray by the
equivocal meaning of a word. There is no connection between the
greatness of a kingdom, and the greatness of a theme for poetic
purposes. The poverty of Scotland did not detract from the tragic
grandeur of Macbeth. When the fugitive princes in the Thebais quarrel in
the vestibule, where they have taken shelter from the storm, and fight
with their fists, Pope confused the narrative by omitting the whole
account as inconsistent with epic dignity, and sacrificed the
characteristics of the original to assimilate the manners to modern
usages. If his criticisms had been well founded he should yet have kept
to his text. "The sense of an author," says Dryden, "is, generally
speaking, to be sacred and inviolable. If the fancy of Ovid be
luxuriant, it is his character to be so; and, if I retrench it, he is no
longer Ovid. It will be replied that he receives advantage by this
lopping of his superfluous branches; but I rejoin that a translator has
no such right. When a painter copies from the life, I suppose he has no
privilege to alter features and lineaments, under pretence that his
picture will look better; perhaps the face which he has drawn would be
more exact if the eyes or nose were altered; but it is his