dead colouring of the whole. In general I will only fay, that I have written nothing which favours of immorality or profaneness; at least, I am not confcious to myself of any such intention. If there happen to be found an irreverent expreffion, or a thought too wanton, they are crept into my verses through my inadvertency; if the fearchers find any in the cargo, let them be staved or forfeited, like contraband goods; at least, let their authors be anfwerable for them, as being but imported merchandise, and not of my own manufacture. On the other fide, I have endeavoured to choofe fuch fables, both ancient and modern, as contain in each of them fome instructive moral, which I could prove by induction, but the way is tedious; and they leap foremost into fight, without the reader's trouble of looking after them. I wish I could affirm with a safe confcience, that I had taken the fame care in all my former writings; for it must be owned, that fuppofing verses are never fo beautiful or pleafing, yet if they contain any thing which shocks religion, or good-manners, they are at best, what Horace fays of good numbers without good fenfe, "Verfus inopes rerum, nugæque "canora." Thus far, I hope, I am right in court, without renouncing my other right of self-defence, where I have been wrongfully accused, and my sense wire-drawn into blafphemy or bawdry, as it has often been by a religious lawyer, in a late pleading against the stage; in which he mixes truth with falsehood, and has not forgotten the old rule of calumniating ftrongly, that fomething may remain. I refume I refume the thread of my discourse with the first of my tranflation, which was the firft Iliad of Homer. If it fhall please God to give me longer life, and moderate health, my intentions are to translate the whole Ilias; provided still that I meet with those encouragements from the public, which may enable me to proceed in my undertaking with fome chearfulness. And this I dare affure the world before-hand, that I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleafing tafk than Virgil (though I fay not the translation will be less laborious); for the Grecian is more according to my genius, than the Latin poet. In the works of the two authors we may read their manners, and natural inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet, fedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words: Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties, both of numbers and of expreffions, which his language, and the age in which he lived, allowed him: Homer's invention was more copious, Virgil's more confined so that if Homer had not led the way, it was not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry: for nothing can be more evident, than that the Roman poem is but the fecond part of the Ilias; a continuation of the fame ftory: and the perfons already formed: the manners of Æneas are those of Hector fuperadded to those which Homer gave him. The Adventures of Ulyffes in the Odyffeis are imitated in the first Six Books of Virgil's neis: and though the accidents are not the fame (which C 2 : would would have argued him of a fervile copying, and total barrennefs of invention) yet the feas were the fame, in which both the heroes wandered; and Dido cannot be denied to be the poetical daughter of Calypfo! The fix latter books of Virgil's poem are the four and twenty Iliads contracted: a quarrel occafioned by a lady, a fingle combat, battles fought, and a town befieged. I fay not this in derogation to Virgil, neither do I contradi& any thing which I have formerly faid in his jut praife: for his Episodes are almost wholly of his own invention; and the form, which he has given to the telling, makes the tale his own, even though the original story had been the fame. But this proves, however, that Homer taught Virgil to defign: and if invention be the firft virtue of an Epic poet, then the Latin poem can only be allowed the fecond place. Mr Hobbes, in the preface to his own bald tranflation of the Ilias, (studying poetry as he did mathematicks, when it was too late) Mr Hobbes, I fay, begins the praife of Homer where he fhould have ended it. tells us, that the firft beauty of an Epic poem confifts in diction, that is, in the choice of words, and harmony of numbers now, the words are the colouring of the work, which in the order of nature is laft to be confidered. The defign, the difpofition, the manners, and the thoughts, are all before it: where any of thofe are wanting or imperfect, fo much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life; which is in the very definition of a poem. Words indeed, like glaring colours, are the first beauties that arife, and ftrike the fight: but if the draught be falfe or lame, the figures ill-dif : He pofed, pofed, the manners obfcure or inconfiftent, or the thoughts unnatural, then the fineft colours are but daubing, and the piece is a beautiful monster at the best. Neither Virgil nor Homer were deficient in any of the former beauties; but in this laft, which is expreffion, the Roman poet is at least equal to the Gre. cian, as I have faid elsewhere; fupplying the poverty of his language by his musical ear, and by his diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being fo different in their tempers, one choleric and fanguine, the other phlegmatic and melancholic; that which makes them excel in their several ways, is, that each of them has followed his own natural inclination, as well in forming the design, as in the execution of it. The very heroes fhew their authors; Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful, "Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, "acer, &c." Eneas patient, confiderate, careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies: ever fubmiffive to the will of heaven, " quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque, "fequamur." I could please myfelf with enlarging on this fubject, but I am forced to defer it to a fitter time. From all I have faid, I will only draw this inference, that the action of Homer being more full of vigour than that of Virgil, according to the temper of the writer, is of confequence more pleafing to the reader. One warms you by degrees; the other fets you on fire all at once, and never intermits his heat. It is the fame difference which Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in Demofthenes and Tully. One perfuades ; the other commands., You never cool while you read Homer, C 3 Homer, even not in the fecond book (a graceful flattery to his countrymen); but he haftens from the fhips, and concludes not that book till he has made you an amends by the violent playing of a new machine. From thence he hurries on his action with variety of events, and ends it in lefs compafs than two months. This vehemence of his, I confefs, is more fuitable to my temper; and therefore I have tranflated his firft book with greater pleasure than any part of Virgil: but it was not a pleasure without pains the continual agitations of the spirits must needs be a weakening of any conftitution, especially in age; and many paufes are required for refreshment betwixt the heats; the Iliad of itself being a third part longer than all Virgil's works together. : This is what I thought needful in this place to fay of Homer. I proceed to Ovid and Chaucer ; confidering the former only in relation to the latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue : from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were not unlike : both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous, and libertine, at leaft in their writings, it may be alfo in their lives. Their ftudies were the fame, philofophy and philology. Both of them were known in aftronomy, of which Ovid's books of the Roman feats, and Chaucer's treatise of the Aftrolabe, are fufficient witneffes. But Chaucer was likewife an aftrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Perfius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness: neither were great inven tors: |