tiently fuffered the ruin of my fmall fortune, and the lofs of that poor fubfiftance which I had from two kings, whom I had served more faithfully than profitably to myfelf; then your lordship was pleased, out of no other motive but your own nobleness, without any defert of mine, or the leaft follicitation from me, to make me a moft bountiful prefent, which at that time, when I was most in want of it, came most seasonably and unexpectedly to my relief. That favour, my lord, is of itfelf fufficient to bind any grateful man to a perpetual acknowledgment, and to all the future fervice, which one of my mean condition can ever be able to perform. May the Almighty God return it for me, both in bleffing you here, and rewarding you hereafter. I must not prefume to defend the caufe for which I now fuffer, because your lordfhip is engaged against it: but the more you are fo, the greater is my obligation to you: for your laying afide all the confiderations of factions and parties, to do an action of pure difinterested charity. This is one amongst many of your thining qualities, which diftinguish you from others of your rank: but let me add a farther truth, that without thefe ties of gratitude, and abstracting from them all, I have a moft particular inclination to honor you; and, if it were not too bold an expression, to fay, I love you. It is no fhame to be a poet, though it is to be a bad one. Auguftus Cæfar of old, and cardinal Richlieu of late, would willingly have been fuch; and David and Solomon were fuch. You, who without flattery, are the best of the prefent age in England, and would have been fo, had you been born in any other country, will receive more honor in future ages, by that one excellency, than by all those honors to which your birth has intitled you, or your merits have acquired you. Ne, forte, pudori

Sit tibi mufa lyræ folers, & eantor Apello.

I have formerly faid in this epiftle, that I could distinguish your writings from thofe of any others: it is now time to clear myself from any imputation of felf-conceit on that fubject. I affume not to myself any particular lights in this difcovery; they are fuch only as are obvious to every man of fenfe and judgment, who loves poetry, and understands it. Your thoughts are always fo remote from the common way of thinking, that they are, as I may fay, of another fpecies, than the conceptions of other poets; yet you go not out of nature for any of them: gold is never bred upon the furface of the ground; but lies fo hidden,

and

and fo deep, that the mines of it are feldom found; but the force of waters cafts it out from the bowels of mountains, and exposes it amongst the fands of rivers: giving us of her bounty, what we could not hope for by our fearch. This fuccefs attends your lordship's thoughts, which would look like chance, if it were not perpetual, and always of the fame tenor. If I grant that there is care in it, it is fuch a care as would be ineffectual and fruitless in other men. It is the curiofa felicitas which Petronius afcribes to Horace in his Odes. We have not wherewithal to imagine fo ftrongly, fo justly, and so pleasantly in hort, if we have the fame knowledge, we cannot draw out of it the fame quinteffence; we cannot give it such a term, such a propriety, and fuch a beauty: fomething is deficient in the manner, or the words, but more in the nobleness of our conception. Yet when you have finished all, and it appears in its full luftre, when the diamond is not only found, but the roughnefs fmoothed, when it is cut into a form, and fet in gold, then we cannot but acknowledge, that it is the perfect work of art and nature: and every one will be so vain, to think he himself could have performed the like, 'till he attempts it. It is just the description that Horace makes of fuch a finished piece: it appears fo eafy, Ut fibi quivis fperet idem; fudet multum, fruftraque laboret, aufus idem. And befides all this, it is your lordship's particular talent to lay your thoughts fo clofe together, that were they closer they would be crouded, and even a due connexion would be wanting. We are not kept in expectation of two good lines, which are to come after a long parenthesis of twenty bad; which is the April-poetry of other writers; a mixture of rain and funfhine by fits; you are always bright, even almost to a fault, by reafon of the excefs. There is continual abundance, a magazine of thought, and yet a perpetual variety of entertainment; which creates fuch an appetite in your reader, that he is not cloyed with any thing, but fatisfied with all. It is that which the Romans call Cana dubia; where there is such plenty, yet withal fo much diversity, and fo good order, that the choice is difficult betwixt one excellency and another; and yet the conclufion, by a due climax, is evermore the best; that is, as a conclufion ought to be, ever the most proper for its place. See, my lord, whether I have not ftudied your lordship with fome application: and fince you are fo modeft, that you will not be judge and party, I appeal to the whole world, if I have not drawn your picture to a great degree of likenefs, though it is VOL. IV.

N

but

but in miniature: and that fome of the best features are yet wanting. Yet what I have done is enough to diftinguifh you from any other, which is the proposition that I took upon me to demonftrate.

And now, my lord, to apply what I have faid to my present business; the fatires of Juvenal and Perfius appearing in this new English drefs, cannot fo properly be infcribed to any man as to your lordship, who are the first of the age in that way of writing. Your lordship, amongst many other favours, has given me your permiffion for this addrefs; and you have particularly encouraged me by your perusal and approbation of the fixth and tenth fatires of Juvenal, as I have tranflated them. My fellowlabourers have likewife commiffioned me, to perform in their behalf this office of a dedication to you; and will acknowledge with all poffible respect and gratitude, your acceptance of their work. Some of them have the honor to be known to your lordship already; and they who have not yet that happiness, defire it now. Be pleased to receive our common endeavours with your wonted candor, without intitling you to the protection of our common failings, in fo difficult an undertaking. And allow me your patience, if it be not already tired with this long epiftle, to give you, from the beft authors, the origin, the antiquity, the growth, the change, and the compleatment of fatire among the Romans. To defcribe, if not define, the nature of that poem, with its feveral qualifications and virtues, together with the feveral forts of it. To compare the excellencies of Horace, Perfius, and Juvenal, and fhew the particular manners of their fatires. And lastly, to give an account of this new way of verfion which is attempted in our performance. All which, according to the weakness of my ability, and the beft lights which I can get from others, fhall be the fubject of my following difcourfe.

The most perfect work of poetry, fays our mafter Ariftotle, is tragedy. His reafon is, because it is the most united; being more feverely confined within the rules of action, time, and place. The action is entire, of a piece, and one, without epifodes: the time limited to a natural day; and the place circumscribed at least within the compafs of one town, or city. Being exactly proportioned thus, and uniform in all its parts, the mind is more capable of comprehending the whole beauty of it without distraction.

But after all these advantages, an heroique poem is certainly the greatest work of human nature. The beauties and perfec

tions of the other are but mechanical; thofe of the epique are more noble. Though Homer has limited his place to Troy, and the fields about it; his action to forty-eight natural days, whereof twelve are holidays, or ceffation from bufinefs, during the funerals of Patroclus. To proceed, the action of the epique is greater the extention of time enlarges the pleasure of the reader, and the episodes give it more ornament, and more variety. The inftruction is equal; but in the first is only inftructive, the latter forms a hero, and a prince.

If it fignifies any thing which of them is of the more ancient family, the best and most abfolute heroique poem was written by Homer long before tragedy was invented: but if we confider the natural endowments, and acquired parts, which are neceffary to make an accomplished writer in either kind, tragedy requires a lefs and more confined knowledge: moderate learning, and obfervation of the rules is fufficient, if a genius be not wanting. But in an epique poet, one who is worthy of that name, befides an univerfal genius, is required univerfal learning, together with all thofe qualities and acquifitions which I have named above, and as many more as I have through haste or negligence omitted. And after all, he must have exactly studied Homer and Virgil, as his patterns, Ariftotle and Horace, as his guides, and Vida and Boffu, as their commentators, with many others both Italian and French, critics, which I want leifure here to recommend.

In a word, what I have to fay in relation to this fubject, which does not particularly concern fatire, is, that the greatness of an heroique poem, beyond that of a tragedy, may easily be difcovered, by obferving how few have attempted that work, in comparison of thofe who have written drama's; and of those few, how fmall a number have fucceeded. But leaving the critics on either fide, to contend about the preference due to this or that fort of poetry; I will haften to my present business, which is the antiquity and origin of fatire, according to those informations which I have received from the learned Cafaubon, Heinfius, Rigaltius, Dacier, and the Dauphin's Juvenal; to which I fhall add some obfervations of my own.

There has been a long dispute among the modern critics, whether the Romans derived their fatire from the Grecians, or first invented it themselves. Julius Scaliger, and Heinfius, are of the firft opinion; Cafaubon, Rigaltius, Dacier, and the publifher of the Dauphin's Juvenal, maintain the latter. If we

take fatire in the general fignification of the word, as it is used in all modern languages for an invective, it is certain that it is almost as old as verfe; and though hymns, which are praises of God, may be allowed to have been before it, yet the defamation of others was not long after it. After God had cursed Adam and Eve in Paradife, the husband and wife excused themselves, by laying the blame on one another; and gave a beginning to thofe conjugal dialogues in profe, which the poets have perfected in verfe. The third chapter of Job is one of the firft inftances of this poem in holy fcripture: unless we will take it higher; from the latter end of the fecond; where his wife advises him to curse his Maker.

The original, I confefs, is not much to the honor of fatire; but here it was nature, and that depraved! When it became an art, it bore better fruit. Only we have learnt thus much already, that scoffs and revilings are of the growth of all nations; and confequently that neither the Greek poets borrowed from other people their art of railing, neither needed the Romans to take it from them. But confidering fatire as a fpecies of poetry, here the war begins amongst the critiques. Scaliger the father will have it defcend from Greece to Rome; and derives the word fatire from Satyrus, that mixt kind of animal, or, as the ancients thought him, rural god, made up betwixt a man and a goat; with a human head, hooked nofe, powting lips, a bunch or ftruma under the chin, pricked ears, and upright horns; the body fhagged with hair, especially from the waift, and ending in a goat, with the legs and feet of that creature. But Cafaubon, and his followers, with reafon, condemn this derivation; and prove that from Satyrus, the word fatira, as it fignifies a poem, cannot poffibly defcend. For fatira is not properly a fubftantive, but an adjective; to which the word lanx, in Englifh a charger, or large platter, is understood: fo that the Greek poem made according to the manner of a fatyr, and expreffing his qualities, muft properly be called fatyrical, and not fatyr. And thus far it is allowed that the Grecians had fuch poems; but that they were wholly different in specie, from that to which the Romans gave the name of fatyr.

Ariftotle divides all poetry, in relation to the progrefs of it, into nature without art, art begun, and art compleated. Mankind, even the most barbarous, have the feeds of poetry im planted in them. The firft fpecimen of it was certainly fhewn in the praifes of the Deity, and prayers to him and as they are of natural obligation, fo they are likewife of divine inftitution.