as please. 'Tis moft certain that barefaced Bawdery is the poorest pretence to Wit imaginable. If I fhould fay otherwife, I fhould have two great Authorities against me. The one is the Efay on Peetry, which I publickly valued before I knew the Author of it, and with the Commendation of which my Lord Rofcommon fo happily begins his Effay on Tranflated Verfe: The other is no less than our admir'd Cowley, who fays the fame thing in other Words: For in his Ode concerning Wit, he writes thus of it;

Much lefs can that have any place,

At which a Virgin hides her Face:

Such Drofs the Fire must purge away; 'tis juft
The Author blufh, there where the Reader must.

Here indeed Mr. Cowley goes farther than the Efay; for he afferts plainly, that Obscenity has no place in Wit: The other only fays, 'tis a poor pretence to it, or an ill fort of Wit, which has nothing more to fupport it than hare-faced Ribaldry; which is both unmannerly in it felf, and fulfom to the Reader. But neither of these will reach my cafe: For in the first place, I am only the Tranflator, not the Inventor; fo that the heavieft part of the Cenfure falls upon Lucretius, before it reaches me: In the next place, neither he nor I have used the groffeft Words, but the cleanest Metaphors we could find, to palliate the broadness of the Meaning; and, to conclude, have carried the Poetical part no farther, than the Philofophical exacted.

This puts me in mind of what I owe to the Ingenious and Learned Tranflator of Lucretius. I have not here defign'd to rob him of any part of

that

that Commendation, which he has fo juftly acquir'd by the whole Author, whofe Fragments only fall to my Portion. What I have now perform'd is no more than I intended above twenty Years ago. The ways of our Tranflations are very different. He follows him more clofely than I have done, which became an Interpreter of the whole Poem I take more liberty, because it beft fuited with my Defign, which was to make him as pleafing as I could. He had been too voluminous, had he us'd my Method in fo long a Work; and I had certainly taken his, had I made it my bufinets to tranflate the whole. The Preference then is juftly his; and I join with Mr. Evelyn in the confeffion of it, with this additional Advantage to him; that his Reputation is already eftablifh'd in this Poet, mine is to make its Fortune in the World. If I have been any where obfcure, in following our common Author, or if Lucretius himself is to be condemn'd, I refer my felf to his excellent Annotations, which I have often read, and always with fome new Pleasure.

My Preface begins already to fwell upon me, and looks as if I were afraid of my Reader, by fo tedious a befpeaking of him: And yet I have Horace and Theocritus upon my Hands; but the Greek Gentleman fhall quickly be difpatch'd, because I have more business with the Roman.

That, which diftinguishes Theocritus from all other Poets, both Greek and Latin, and which raifes him even above Virgil in his Eclogues, is the inimitable Tenderness of his Paffions, and the natural Expreffion of them in Words fo becoming of a Paftoral. A Simplicity fhines thro' all he writes. He fhews his Art and Learning by difguifing both. His Shepherds never rife above their Country Edu

cation in their complaints of Love. There is the fame difference betwixt him and Virgil, as there is betwixt Taffo's Aminta and the Paftor Fido of Guarini. Virgil's Shepherds are too well read in the Philofophy of Epicurus and of Plato; and Guarini's feem to have been bred in Courts. But Theocritus and Tafso have taken theirs from Cottages and Plains. It was faid of Tasso, in relation to his Similitudes, that he never departed from the Woods, that is, all his Comparifons were taken from the Country. The fame may be faid of our Theocritus. He is fofter than Ovid; he touches the Paffions more delicately, and performs all this out of his own Fund, without diving into the Arts and Sciences for a Supply. Even his Dorick Dialect has an incomparable Sweetness in its Clownifhnefs, like a fair Shepherdefs in her Country Ruffet, talking in a Yorkshire Tone. This was impoffible for Virgil to imitate; because the severity of the Roman Language deny'd him that Advantage. Spencer has endeavour'd it in his Shepherd's Kalendar: but neither will it fucceed in English; for which reafon I have forbore to attempt it. For Theocritus writ to Sicilians, who fpoke that Dialect; and I direct this part of my Translations to our Ladies, who neither underftand, nor will take Pleasure in fuch homely Expreffions. I proceed to Horace.

Take him in parts, and he is chiefly to be confider'd in his three different Talents, as he was a Critick, a Satirift, and a Writer of Odes. His Morals are uniform, and run through all of them: For let his Dutch Commentators fay what they will, his Philofophy was Epicurean; and he made ufe of Gods and Providence, only to ferve a turn in Poetry. But fince neither his Criticisms, which

are

are the most inftructive of any that are written in this Art, nor his Satires, which are incomparably beyond Juvenal's, if to laugh and rally is to be preferr'd to railing and declaiming, are no part of my prefent Undertaking, I confine my felf wholly to his Odes. These are alfo of feveral forts: fome of them are Panegyrical, others Moral, the reft Jovial, or (if I may fo call them) Bacchanalian. As difficult as he makes it, and as indeed it is, to imitate Pindar, yet, in his moft elevated Flights, and in the fudden Changes of his Subject with almoft imperceptible Connexions, that Theban Poet is his Mafter. But Horace is of the more bounded Fancy, and confines himself strictly to one fort of Verfe, or Stanza, in every Ode. That, which will diftinguifh his Style from all other Poets, is the Elegance of his Words, and the Numeroufness of his Verfe. There is nothing fo delicately turn'd in all the Roman Language. There appears in every part of his Diction, or (to fpeak English) in all his Expreffions, a kind of noble and bold Purity. His Words are chofen with as much exactnefs as Virgil's; but there feems to be a greater Spirit in them. There is a fecret Happiness attends his Choice, which in Petronius is call'd Curiofa Felicitas, and which I fuppofe he had from the Feliciter audere of Horace himself. But the most diftinguishing part of all his Character seems to me to be his Brisknefs, his Jollity, and his good Humour: And thofe I have chiefly endeavour'd to copy. His other Excellencies, I confefs, are above my Imitation. One Ode, which infinitely pleas'd me in the reading, I have attempted to tranflate in Pindarick Verfe: 'Tis that, which is infcrib'd to the prefent Earl of Rochester, to whom I have particular Obligations, which this fmall Teftimony of my Gratitude can never pay.

'Tis his Darling in the Latin, and I have taken fome Pains to make it my Mafter-piece in English: For which reafon I took this kind of Verfe, which allows more Latitude than any other. Every one knows it was introduced into our Language, in this Age, by the happy Genius of Mr. Cowley. The feeming cafinefs of it has made it spread: but it has not been confider'd enough, to be fo well cultivated. It languishes in almoft every hand but his, and fome very few, whom (to keep the reft in Countenance) I do not name. He, indeed, has brought it as near Perfection, as was poffible in fo fhort a time. But if I may be allow'd to fpeak my Mind modeftly, and without Injury to his facred Afhes, fomewhat of the Purity of English, fomewhat of more equal Thoughts, fomewhat of Sweetnefs in the Numbers, in one word, fomewhat of a finer Turn, and more Lyrical Verfe, is yet wanting. As for the Soul of it, which confifts in the Warmth and Vigour of Fancy, the masterly Figures, and the Copiousness of Imagination, he has excell'd all others in this kind. Yet if the Kind it felf be capable of more Perfection, though rather in the Ornamental Parts of it, than the Effential, what Rules of Morality or Respect have I broken, in naming the Defects, that they may hereafter be amended? Imitation is a nice Point, and there are few Poets, who deferve to be Models in all they write. Milton's Paradife Loft is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no Flats amongft his Elevations, when 'tis evident he creeps along fometimes for above an hundred Lines together? Cannot I admire the height of his Invention, and the strength of his Expreffion, without defending his antiquated Words, and the perpetual harfhnefs of their Sound? 'Tis as much Commendation as a Man can bear, to

own