Excerpt from Plinty Letters, Vol. 1 of 2: With an English Translation by William Melmoth

On the other hand, Melmoth carried too far the principle that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. Judged even by the easy canons of his time in regard to translation, his work is extraordinarily loose and inaccurate, a good deal of it is simply paraphrase, and in many places the sense is fla grantly wrong. Thorough revision was necessary if it was to be included in the Loeb Classical Library, it was further needful to compress it considerably before it could be placed side by side with the text, as Melmoth's fondness for amplifying often makes the English twice as long as the Latin. To put new cloth to an old garment is always a hazardous undertaking, and the best I can hope is that my patches, though extensive, are sufficiently in harmony with the original fabric to escape notice.

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