tures of those two were hung in the most honourable place of public libraries; and the design of taking them down, and destroying Virgil's works, was looked upon as one of the most extravagant amongst the many brutish phrenzies of Caligula. ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HUGH, LORD CLIFFORD, BARON OF CHUDLEIGH.* MY LORD, I HAVE found it not more difficult to translate Virgil, than to find such patrons as I desire for my translation. For, though England is not wanting in a learned nobility, yet such are my unhappy circumstances, that they have confined me to a narrow choice. To the greater part I have not the *This was the son of Lord Treasurer Clifford, a member of the Cabal administration, to whom our author dedicated "Amboyna." See Vol. V. p. 5. Hugh, Lord Clifford, died in 1730. + Dryden alludes to his religion and politics. I presume, Hugh, Lord Clifford, was a Catholic, like his father, and entertained the hereditary attachment to the line of Stuart; thus falling within the narrow choice to which Dryden was limited. |