ce of this kind will in time
drive it and all like to it utterly out of schools and out of the minds
of all." Apparently the schoolmaster's ban upon the unauthorized use of
translations was establishing the distinction between the English
version which might claim to be ranked as literature and that which
Johnson later designated as "the clandestine refuge of schoolboys."[377]

Another limitation of the audience was, however, less admirable. For the
widely democratic appeal of the Elizabethan translator was substituted
an appeal to a class, distinguished, if one may believe the philosopher
Hobbes, as much by social position as by intellect. In discussing the
vocabulary to be employed by the translator, Hobbes professes opinions
not unlike those of the sixteenth-century critics. Like Puttenham, he
makes a distinction between words as suited or unsuited for the epic
style. "The names of instruments and tools of artificers, and words of
art," he says in the preface to his _Homer_, "though of use in the
schools, are far from being fit to be spoken by a hero. He may delight
in the arts themselves, and have skill in some of them, but his glory
lies not in that, but in courage, nobility, and other virtues of nature,
or in the command he has over other men." In Hobbes' objection to the
use of unfamiliar words, also, there is nothing new; but in the
standards by which he tries such terms there is something amusingly
characteristic of his time. In the choice of words, "the first
indiscretion is in the use of such words as to the readers of poesy
(which are commonly Persons of the best Quality)"--it is only fair to
reproduce Hobbes' capitalization--"are not sufficiently known. For the
work of an heroic poem is to raise admiration (principally) for three
virtues, valor, beauty, and love; to the reading whereof women no less
than men have a just pretence though their skill in language be not so
universal. And therefore foreign words, till by long use they become
vulgar, are unintelligible to them." Dryden is similarly restrained by
the thought of his readers. He does not try to reproduce the "Doric
dialect" of Theocritus, "for Theocritus writ to Sicilians, who spoke
that dialect; and I direct this part of my translations to our ladies,
who neither understand, nor will take pleasure in such homely
expressions."[378] In translating the _Aeneid_ he follows what he
conceives to have been Virgil's practice. "I will not give the reasons,"