I have lately compared it line for line with the original, and think it very well done.

I was particularly pleased with the skill you have shown in managing the contest between the shepherds in the third Pastoral, where you have included in a succession of couplets the sense of Virgil's paired hexameters.

I think I mentioned to you that these poems of Virgil have always delighted me much; there is frequently either an elegance or a happiness which no translation can hope to equal.

In point of fidelity your translation is very good indeed.
You astonish me with the account of your books; and I should have been still more astonished if you had told me you had read a third (shall I say a tenth part ?) of them.

My reading powers were never very good, and now they are much diminished, especially by candle-light; and as to _buying_ books, I can affirm that in _new_ books I have not spent five shillings for the last five years, _i.e._, in Reviews, Magazines, Pamphlets, &c.