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officina fequaci materia fuit. Officina is the workhouse where an artist exercises his craft; but no author, except Pliny himself, ever employed it to fignify the labour of the artist. With a fimilar incorrectness of expreffion, which, howver, is juftified by general use, the French employ cuifine to fignify both the place where victuals are dressed, and the art of dreffing them. Sequax materia fignifies pliable materials, and therefore eafily wrought; but the term fequax cannot be applied with any propriety to fuch materials as are easily wrought, on account of their magnitude or abundance. Tam parvis is eafily understood, but tam nullis has either no meaning at all, or a very obfcure one. Inextricabilis perfectio. It is no perfection in any thing to be inextricable;

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for the meaning of inextricable is, embroiled, perplexed, and confounded. Ubi tot fenfus collocavit in culice? What is the meaning of the question ubi? Does it mean, in what part of the body of the gnat? I conceive it can mean nothing elfe: And if fo, the question is abfurd; for all the fenfes of a gnat are not placed in any one part of its body, any more than the fenfes of a man. Dictu minora. By these words the author intended to convey the meaning of alia etiam minora poffunt dici; but the meaning which he has actually conveyed is, Sunt alia minora quam quæ dici poffunt, which is falfe and hyperbolical;

for no infect is fo fmall that words may not be found to convey an idea of its fize. Portione maximam vocem ingeWhat is portione maximam? It

neravit.

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is only from the context that we guess the author's meaning to be, maximam ratione portionis, i. e. magnitudinis infecti; for neither use, nor the analogy of the language, juftify fuch an expreffion as vocem maximam portione. If it is alledged, that portio is here used to fignify the power or intenfity of the voice, and is fynonymous in this place to vis, erepyesα, we may fafely affert, that this ufe of the term is licentious, improper, and unwarranted by custom. Jejunam caveam uti alvum; “ a hungry cavity for a bel

ly:" but is not the ftomach of all animals a hungry cavity, as well as that of the gnat? Capaci cum cernere non poteft exilitas. Capax is improperly contrafted with exilis, and cannot be otherwife tranflated than in the fenfe of magnus Reciproca geminavit arte is incapable of any translation which fhall ren

der

der the proper fenfe of the words, "doubled with reciprocal art." The author's meaning is, " fitted for a double "function." Cum fono tefte is gueffed from the context to mean, uti fonus tef Cum rerum natura nufquam magis quam in minimis tota fit. This is a very n obfcure expreffion of a plain sentiment, “The wisdom and power of Provi"dence, or of Nature, is never more

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confpicuous than in the smallest bo

"dies." Ex his pernunt multa. The meaning of ex his is indefinite, and therefore obfcure: we can but conjecture that it means ex rebus hujufmodi ; and not ex his quæ diximus; for that fenfe is referved for relata.

FROM this fpecimen, we may judge of the difficulty of giving a juft tranflation of Pliny's Natural History.

CHAP.

CHAP. XIV.

Of Burlesque Tranflation.-Travesty and Parody.-Scarron's Virgile Travefti.— Another Species of Ludicrous Tranfla

tion.

Na preceding chapter, while treating of the translation of idiomatic phrases, we cenfured the use of such idioms in the tranflation as do not correfpond with the age or country of the original. There is, however, one fpecies of translation, in which that violation

of

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