have us'd that license in his Æneis sometimes, but I own it as my fault. 'T was given to those who understand no better. 'Tis like Ovid's

Semivirumque bovem, semibovemque virum.

The poet found it before his critics, but it was a darling sin, which he would not be persuaded to reform. The want of genius, of which I have accus'd the French, is laid to their charge by one of their own great authors, tho' I have forgotten his name, and where I read it. If rewards could make good poets, their great master has not been wanting on his part in his bountiful encouragements; for he is wise enough to imitate Augustus, if he had a Maro. The triumvir and proscriber had descended to us in a more hideous form than they now appear, if the emperor had not taken care to make friends of him and Horace. I confess the banishment of Ovid was a blot in his escutcheon: yet he was only banish'd; and who knows but his crime was capital, and then his exile was a favor? Ariosto, who, with all his faults, must be acknowledg'd a great poet, has put these words into the mouth of an evangelist; but whether they will pass for gospel now, I cannot tell:

Non fu si santo ni benigno Augusto,
Come la tuba di Virgilio suona.
L'haver havuto in poesia buon gusto,
La proscrittione iniqua gli perdona.

But heroic poetry is not of the growth of France, as it might be of England, if it were cultivated. Spenser wanted only to have read the rules of Bossu; for no man was ever born with a greater genius, or had more knowledge to support it. But the performance of the French is not equal to their skill; and hitherto we have wanted skill to perform better. Segrais, whose preface is so wonderfully good, yet is wholly destitute of elevation, tho' his version is much better than that of the two brothers, or any of the rest who have attempted Virgil. Hannibal Caro is a great name amongst the Italians; yet his translation of the Eneis is most scandalously mean, tho' he has taken the advantage of writing in blank verse, and freed himself from the shackles

of modern rhyme, (if it be modern; for Le Clerc has told us lately, and I believe has made it out, that David's Psalms were written in as errant rhyme as they are translated.) Now, if a Muse cannot run when she is unfetter'd, 't is a sign she has but little speed. I will not make a digression here, tho' I am strangely tempted to it; but will only say, that he who can write well in rhyme, may write better in blank verse. Rhyme is certainly a constraint even to the best poets, and those who make it with most ease; tho' perhaps I have as little reason to complain that hardship as any man, excepting Quarles and Withers. What it adds to sweetness, it takes away from sense; and he who loses the least by it may be call'd a gainer. It often makes us swerve from an author's meaning; as, if a mark be set up for an archer at a great distance, let him·aim as exactly as he can, the least wind will take his arrow, and divert it from the white. I return to our Italian translator of the Eneis. He is a footpoet, he lackeys by the side of Virgil at the best, but never mounts behind him. Doctor Morelli, who is no mean critic in our poetry, and therefore may be presum'd to be a better in his own language, has confirm'd me in this opinion by his judgment, and thinks, withal, that he has often mistaken his master's sense. I would say so, if I durst, but am afraid I have committed the same fault more often, and more grossly; for I have forsaken Ruæus (whom generally I follow) in many places, and made expositions of my own in some, quite contrary to him. Of which I will give but two examples, because they are so near each other, in the Tenth Æneid:

Sorti pater æquus utrique.

Pallas says it to Turnus, just before they fight. Ruæus thinks that the word pater is to be referr'd to Evander, the father of Pallas. But how could he imagine that it was the same thing to Evander, if his son were slain, or if he overcame? The poet certainly intended Jupiter, the common father of mankind; who, as Pallas hop'd, would stand an impartial spectator of the combat, and not be more favorable to Turnus than to him. The second is not long after it, and both before the duel is begun. They are the words of Jupiter, who comforts Hercules for the death of Pallas, which was

immediately to ensue, and which Hercules could not hinder, (tho' the young hero had address'd his prayers to him for his assistance,) because the gods cannot control destiny.The verse follows:

Sic ait; atque oculos Rutulorum rejicit arvis,

which the same Ruæus thus construes: Jupiter, after he had said this, immediately turns his eyes to the Rutulian fields, and beholds the duel. I have given this place another exposition, that he turn'd his eyes from the field of combat, that he might not behold a sight so unpleasing to him. The word rejicit, I know, will admit of both senses; but Jupiter having confess'd that he could not alter fate, and being griev'd he could not, in consideration of Hercules, it seems to me that he should avert his eyes, rather than take pleasure in the spectacle. But of this I am not so confident as the other, tho' I think I have follow'd Virgil's sense.

What I have said, tho' it has the face of arrogance, yet is intended for the honor of my country; and therefore I will boldly own that this English translation has more of Virgil's spirit in it than either the French or the Italian. Some of our countrymen have translated episodes and other parts of Virgil with great success; as particularly your Lordship, whose version of Orpheus and Eurydice is eminently good. Amongst the dead authors, the Silenus of my Lord Roscommon cannot be too much commended. I say nothing of Sir John Denham, Mr. Waller, and Mr. Cowley; 't is the utmost of my ambition to be thought their equal, or not to be much inferior to them, and some others of the living. But 't is one thing to take pains on a fragment, and translate it perfectly; and another thing to have the weight of a whole author on my shoulders. They who believe the burthen light, let them attempt the Fourth, Sixth, or Eighth Pastoral; the First or Fourth Georgic; and, amongst the Eneids, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Seventh, the Ninth, the Tenth, the Eleventh, or the Twelfth; for in these I think I have succeeded best.

Long before I undertook this work, I was no stranger to the original. I had also studied Virgil's design, his disposition of it, his manners, his judicious management of the

figures, the sober retrenchments of his sense, which always leaves somewhat to gratify our imagination, on which it may enlarge at pleasure; but, above all, the elegance of his expressions, and the harmony of his numbers. For, as I have said in a former dissertation, the words are in poetry what the colors are in painting. If the design be good, and the draught be true, the coloring is the first beauty that strikes the eye. Spenser and Milton are the nearest, in English, to Virgil and Horace in the Latin; and I have endeavor'd to form my style by imitating their masters. I will farther own to you, my Lord, that my chief ambition is to please those readers who have discernment enough to prefer Virgil before any other poet in the Latin tongue. Such spirits as he desir'd to please, such would I choose for my judges, and would stand or fall by them alone. Segrais has distinguish'd the readers of poetry, according to their capacity of judging, into three classes; (he might have said the same of writers too, if he had pleas'd.) In the lowest form he places those whom he calls les petits esprits; such things as are our uppergallery audience in a playhouse, who like nothing but the husk and rind of wit; prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before solid sense and elegant expression; these are mob readers. If Virgil and Martial stood for Parliamentmen, we know already who would carry it. But, tho' they make the greatest appearance in the field, and cry the loudest, the best on't is, they are but a sort of French Huguenots, or Dutch boors, brought over in herds, but not naturaliz'd; who have not land of two pounds per annum in Parnassus, and therefore are not privileg'd to poll. Their authors are of the same level, fit to represent them on a mountebank's stage, or to be masters of the ceremonies in a bear garden. Yet these are they who have the most admirers. But it often happens, to their mortification, that, as their readers improve their stock of sense, (as they may by reading better books, and by conversation with men of judgment,) they soon forsake them; and when the torrent from the mountains falls no more, the swelling writer is reduc'd into his shallow bed, like the Mançanares at Madrid, with scarce water to moisten his own pebbles. There are a middle sort of readers, (as we hold there is a middle state of souls,)

such as have a farther insight than the former, yet have not the capacity of judging right; for I speak not of those who are brib'd by a party, and know better, if they were not corrupted; but I mean a company of warm young men, who are not yet arriv'd so far as to discern the difference betwixt fustian, or ostentatious sentences, and the true sublime. These are above liking Martial, or Owen's Epigrams, but they would certainly set Virgil below Statius or Lucan. I need not say their poets are of the same paste with their admirers. They affect greatness in all they write; but 't is a bladder'd greatness, like that of the vain man whom Seneca describes; an ill habit of body, full of humors, and swell'd with dropsy. Even these too desert their authors, as their judgment ripens. The young gentlemen themselves are commonly misled by their pædagogue at school, their tutor at the university, or their governor in their travels. And many of those three sorts are the most positive blockheads in the world. How many of those flatulent writers have I known who have sunk in their reputation after seven or eight editions of their works! for indeed they are poets only for. young men. They had great success at their first appearance; but, not being of God, as a wit said formerly, they could not stand.

I have already nam'd two sorts of judges; but Virgil wrote for neither of them: and, by his example, I am not ambitious of pleasing the lowest or the middle form of readers.

He chose to please the most judicious, souls of the highest rank and truest understanding. These are few in number; but whoever is so happy as to gain their approbation can never lose it, because they never give it blindly. Then they have a certain magnetism in their judgment, which attracts others to their sense. Every day they gain some new proselyte, and in time become the Church. For this reason, a wellweigh'd judicious poem, which at its first appearance gains no more upon the world than to be just receiv'd, and rather not blam'd than much applauded, insinuates itself by insensible degrees into the liking of the reader: the more he studies it, the more it grows upon him; every time he takes it up, he discovers some new graces in it. And whereas poems which are produc'd by the vigor of imagination only,