at Cambridge until 1695, for he did not gain his M.A. until that year. Despite the apparent success of his publisher’s enterprises (A Most Complete Compendium was in its eighth edition by 1713, and The Gazetteer’s or Newsman’s Interpreter reached a twelfth in 1724), little of the profit reached the penurious Echard. In 1717 Archbishop Wake wrote to Addison that

“His circumstances are so much worse than I thought, that if we cannot get somewhat pretty considerable for Him, I doubt He will sink under the weight of his debts . . . .”4

The sheer quantity of work which Echard accomplished in these early years is astonishing: it is no wonder that in the Preface to the Plautus he explained that “business” had prevented him from translating more than three of the comedies, remarking, “. . . I have taken somewhat less time than was necessary for the translating such an extraordinary difficult Author; for this requires more than double the time of an Historian or the like, which was as much as I cou’d allow my self” (sig. b3).

In all of his work Echard sought and acknowledged the help of a whole series of unnamed encouragers and authorities. For the Plautus he “had the Advantage of another’s doing their [i.e., ”these“?] Plays before me; from whose Translation I had very considerable Helps . . .” (sig. b4). Apart from that aid, the Plautus, on the evidence offered by the title-page and the Preface, was all Echard’s own. This is not the case with the Terence, which was translated by a symposium, with the Preface being written by Echard on the group’s behalf. As a result, its Preface uses “we” throughout where the Plautus uses “I.” When the first edition of the Terence appeared it gave the authorship as “By Several Hands,” but later editions are more detailed, and specify that the work was done “By Mr. Laurence Echard, and others. Revis’d and Corrected by Dr. Echard and Sir R. L’Estrange.” The fourth edition also stated firmly in 1716, “The PREFACE, Written by Mr. Laurence Echard” (p. i).

The only discrepancy which might seem to deny Echard’s authorship of the Preface to the Terence is the fact that the two Prefaces contradict one another over the way in which scenes should be marked. The Preface to the Terence simply says that exits and entrances within the acts are a sufficient indication that the scene has changed without numbering them, “for the Ancients never had any other [method] that we know of” (p. xxii). The Plautus on the other hand, numbers the scenes, and the Preface comments, “I have all the way divided the Acts and

Scenes according to the true Rules of the Stage . . .” (sig. b2^v). Since this was an open question, however, in neoclassical dramatic theory, the simplest explanation is that Echard was free to do as he believed in the Plautus, which was all his own, but was, in the Preface to the Terence, expressing the views of the whole group of translators.

The two volumes are a testimony to Echard’s remarkable industry and abilities. They were published the year before he took his M.A., when he was only twenty-four. In the years between coming up to Cambridge in 1687 and 1695, he found time not only to satisfy his university, and to do the very considerable amount of hack work which appeared in 1691 and 1692, as well as embarking upon his large historical works, but also translated two difficult Roman authors with great verve.

It would be interesting to know why, in the years between 1691 and 1694, Echard turned his attentions to the art of translation. The venture is a curious deviation from his otherwise single-minded devotion to history and to journalistic enterprises (the only other translation he is known to have done is the brief “Auction of the Philosophers” in The Works of Lucian [1710-11]). The connection of Dr. John Eachard and Sir Roger L’Estrange may offer a slight clue. Echard was closely related to Dr. Eachard (1636?-1697), Master of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, and author of the lively dialogue, Mr. Hobbs’s State of Nature Consider’d (1672).5 With a family connection such as this, Echard might well have hoped for a successful career centered on his stay at Cambridge. The dedication of his A Most Complete Compendium in 1691 to the Master of his own college, Dr. John Covel, suggests that he was looking in this direction. L’Estrange is important not only for his intimate knowledge of the publishing trade, but also because he was a translator in his own right. His Æsop appeared in 1692, and he had early put out translations of Quevedo (1673), Cicero (1680), and Erasmus (1680), and was to go on to translate Flavius Josephus (1702). Since L’Estrange had also been a student at Cambridge, there is some possibility that the

translation of Terence was carried out at the instigation of a Cambridge based group. The translation might also be connected with the resurgence of interest in translation and in “correctness” which can be discerned in the 1690’s.6

The two Prefaces differ somewhat in character. It seems clear from remarks made in the Preface to the Plautus that it was written after the Terence had already reached the public and after Echard’s copy for the text of Plautus’s three comedies was in the printer’s hands. Not surprisingly the later Preface is hurried, and at times almost casual. The Preface to the Terence is more ambitious, more carefully written, and more wide-ranging, though giving fewer examples of the kinds of translations made by Echard. Both Prefaces lay claim to substantially the same audience. That to the Terence explains that the translation was undertaken in the first place because of the literary value of Terence’s comedy. In consequence, its benefits would apply to “most sorts of People, but especially for the Service it may do our Dramatick Poets.” Secondly, the work was undertaken for “the Honour of our own Language, into which all good Books ought to be Translated, since ’tis now become so Elegant, Sweet and Copious . . . .” Thirdly, it might rival the translations done in other countries, particularly those in France. The audience envisaged ranged from schoolboys, who would find the translation less Latinate and the notes more pointed than those of Bernard or Hoole, to “Men of Sense and Learning,” who ought to be pleased to see Terence in “modern Dress.” As for the dramatists, Terence might serve as an exemplar, especially since the translation could “be read with less Trouble than the Original . . .” (pp. xvii-xix). The Plautus Preface is far less detailed, but refers back to these reasons, while stressing the function of the translation for the schoolboy. Judging by the number of editions, the Terence found its market, for where the Plautus ran to only two editions, the first and that of 1716, the Terence appeared in a seventh edition in 1729. Nor was Echard’s audience merely made up of students. If one of his main targets was contemporary dramatists, he would have