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You; but if in any part of this, Your Modesty thinks me guilty of what I affure you I deteft; continue to be what I believe You, and confirm as well the Judgment as the Opinion of,

My LORD,

Tour Grace's

moft Obedient,

Humble Servant.

PREFACE.

By Mr. DRYDEN.

OR this last half Year I have been troubled with the difeafe (as I may call it) of Tranflation; the cold Profe-fits of it, (which are always the most tedious with me) were spent in the Hiftory of the League; the hot, (which fucceeded them) in Verfe Mifcellanies. The truth is, I fancied to my felf a kind of cafe in the change of the Paroxism; never fufpecting but that the Humour wou'd have wafted it felf in two or three Paftorals of Theocritus, and as many Odes of Horace. But finding, or at least thinking I found, fomething that was more

pleafing in them, than my ordinary Productions, I encourag'd my felf to renew my old acquaintance with Lucretius and Virgil, and immediately fix'd upon fome parts of them which had most affected me in the reading. These were my natural Impulfes for the Undertaking: But there was an accidental Motive, which was full as forcible, It was my Lord Rofcommon's Effay on Tranflated Verfe, which made me uneafie 'till I try'd whether or no I was capable of following his Rules, and of reducing the fpeculation_into practice. For many a fair Precept in Poetry, is like a feeming Demonftration in the Mathematicks; very fpecious in the Diagram, but failing in the Mechanick Operation. I think I have generally obferv'd his Inftructions; 1 am fure my Reafon is fufficiently convinc'd both of their truth and usefulness; which, in other words, is to confefs no lefs a vanity than to pretend that I have at leaft in some places made Examples to his Rules.

Yet withal, I must acknowledge, that I have many times exceeded my Commiflion; for I have both added and omitted, and even fometimes, very boldly made fuch expofitions of my Authors, as no Dutch Commentator will forgive me. Perhaps, in fuch particular paffages, I have thought that I difcover'd fome Beau-, ty yet undiscover'd by thofe Pedants,: which none but a Poet cou'd have, found. Where I have taken away; fome of their Expreffions, and cut them fhorter, it may poffibly be on this confideration, that what was beautiful in the Greek or Latin, wou'd not appear fo fhining in the English: And where I have enlarg'd them, I defire the falfe Critickswou'd not always think, that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are fecretly in the Poet, or may be fairly deduc'd from him or at least, if both thofe Confiderations fhould fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman, they are