than to oppress your modesty with other commendations; which, though they are your due, yet would not be equally received in this satirical and censorious age. That which cannot, without injury, be denied to 5 you, is the easiness of your conversation, far from affectation or pride; not denying even to enemies their just praises. And this, if I would dwell on any theme of this nature, is no vulgar commendation to your Lordship. Without flattery, my Lord, you have it in Io your nature to be a patron and encourager of good poets; but your fortune has not yet put into your hands the opportunity of expressing it. What you will be hereafter, may be more than guessed by what you are at present. You maintain the character of 15 a nobleman, without that haughtiness which generally attends too many of the nobility; and when you converse with gentlemen, you forget not that you have been of their order. You are married to the daughter of a King, who, amongst her other high perfections, 20 has derived from him a charming behaviour, a winning goodness, and a majestic person. The Muses and the Graces are the ornaments of your family; while the Muse sings, the Grace accompanies her voice: even the servants of the Muses have sometimes had the happiness 25 to hear her, and to receive their inspirations from her.

I will not give myself the liberty of going further; for 'tis so sweet to wander in a pleasing way, that I should never arrive at my journey's end. To keep myself from being belated in my letter, and tiring 30 your attention, I must return to the place where I was setting out. I humbly dedicate to your Lordship my own labours in this Miscellany; at the same time not arrogating to myself the privilege, of inscribing to you the works of others who are joined with me in this 35 undertaking, over which I can pretend no right. Your

Lady and you have done me the favour to hear me read my translations of Ovid; and you both seemed not to be displeased with them. Whether it be the partiality of an old man to his youngest child, I know not; but they appear to me the best of all my endeavours 5 in this kind. Perhaps this poet is more easy to be translated than some others whom I have lately attempted; perhaps, too, he was more according to my genius. He is certainly more palatable to the reader, than any of the Roman wits; though some of them are 10 more lofty, some more instructive, and others more He had learning enough to make him equal to the best; but, as his verse came easily, he wanted the toil of application to amend it. He is often luxuriant both in his fancy and expressions, and, as it has lately 15 been observed, not always natural. If wit be pleasantry, he has it to excess; but if it be propriety, Lucretius, Horace, and, above all, Virgil, are his superiors. I have said so much of him already in my Preface to his Heroical Epistles, that there remains little to be 20 added in this place. For my own part, I have endeavoured to copy his character, what I could, in this translation; even, perhaps, further than I should have done; to his very faults. Mr. Chapman, in his Translation of Homer, professes to have done it somewhat 25 paraphrastically, and that on set purpose; his opinion being that a good poet is to be translated in that manner. I remember not the reason which he gives for it; but I suppose it is for fear of omitting any of his excellencies. Sure I am, that if it be a fault, 'tis 30 much more pardonable than that of those, who run into the other extreme of a literal and close translation, where the poet is confined so straitly to his author's words, that he wants elbow-room to express his elegancies. He leaves him obscure; he leaves him prose, 35

where he found him verse; and no better than thus has Ovid been served by the so-much-admired Sandys. This is at least the idea which I have remaining of his translation; for I never read him since I was a boy. 5 They who take him upon content, from the praises which their fathers gave him, may inform their judgment by reading him again, and see (if they understand the original) what is become of Ovid's poetry in his version; whether it be not all, or the greatest part of 10 it, evaporated. But this proceeded from the wrong judgment of the age in which he lived. They neither knew good verse, nor loved it; they were scholars, 'tis true, but they were pedants; and for a just reward of their pedantic pains, all their translations want to be 15 translated into English.

If I flatter not myself, or if my friends have not flattered me, I have given my author's sense for the most part truly; for, to mistake sometimes is incident

to all men; and not to follow the Dutch commentators 20 always, may be forgiven to a man who thinks them, in the general, heavy gross-witted fellows, fit only to gloss on their own dull poets. But I leave a further satire on their wit, till I have a better opportunity to show how much I love and honour them. I have likewise 25 attempted to restore Ovid to his native sweetness, easiness, and smoothness; and to give my poetry a kind of cadence, and, as we call it, a run of verse, as like the original, as the English can come up to the Latin. As he seldom uses any synalophas, so I have 30 endeavoured to avoid them as often as I could. I have likewise given him his own turns, both on the words and on the thought; which I cannot say are inimitable, because I have copied them, and so may others, if they use the same diligence; but certainly they are wonder35 fully graceful in this poet. Since I have named the

synalopha, which is the cutting off one vowel immediately before another, I will give an example of it from Chapman's Homer, which lies before me, for the benefit of those who understand not the Latin prosodia. 'Tis in the first line of the argument to the first Iliad—

5

Apollo's priest to th' Argive fleet doth bring, &c. There we see he makes it not the Argive, but th' Argive, to shun the shock of the two vowels, immediately following each other. But in his second argument, in the same page, he gives a bad example of the quite 10 contrary kind

Alpha the pray'r of Chryses sings:

The army's plague, the strife of kings.

In these words, the army's, the ending with a vowel, and army's beginning with another vowel, without 15 cutting off the first, which by it had been th' army's, there remains a most horrible ill-sounding gap betwixt those words. I cannot say that I have everywhere observed the rule of the synalopha in my translation; but wheresoever I have not, 'tis a fault in sound. The 20 French and the Italians have made it an inviolable precept in their versification; therein following the severe example of the Latin poets. Our countrymen have not yet reformed their poetry so far, but content themselves with following the licentious practice of the 25 Greeks; who, though they sometimes use synalœphas, yet make no difficulty, very often, to sound one vowel upon another; as Homer does, in the very first line of Alpha

Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πῃληϊάδεω ̓Αχιλῆος

30

It is true, indeed, that, in the second line, in these words, μυρί ̓Αχαιοῖς, and ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, the synalæpha, in revenge, is twice observed. But it becomes us, for the sake of euphony, rather Musas colere severiores, with the Romans, than to give into the looseness of the Grecians. 35

I have tired myself, and have been summoned by the press to send away this Dedication; otherwise I had exposed some other faults, which are daily committed by our English poets; which, with care and observa5 tion, might be amended. For after all, our language is both copious, significant, and majestical, and might be reduced into a more harmonious sound. But for want of public encouragement, in this Iron Age, we are so far from making any progress in the improvement 10 of our tongue, that in few years we shall speak and write as barbarously as our neighbours.

Notwithstanding my haste, I cannot forbear to tell your Lordship, that there are two fragments of Homer translated in this Miscellany; one by Mr. Congreve, 15 (whom I cannot mention without the honour which is due to his excellent parts, and that entire affection which I bear him,) and the other by myself. Both the subjects are pathetical; and I am sure my friend has added to the tenderness which he found in the original, 20 and without flattery, surpassed his author. Yet I must needs say this in reference to Homer, that he is much more capable of exciting the manly passions than those of grief and pity. To cause admiration is, indeed, the proper and adequate design of an Epic Poem; and in 25 that he has excelled even Virgil. Yet, without presuming to arraign our master, I may venture to affirm, that he is somewhat too talkative, and more than somewhat too digressive. This is so manifest, that it cannot be denied in that little parcel which I have translated, 30 perhaps too literally there Andromache, in the midst

of her concernment and fright for Hector, runs off her bias, to tell him a story of her pedigree, and of the lamentable death of her father, her mother, and her seven brothers. The devil was in Hector if he knew 35 not all this matter, as well as she who told it him; for