tended to comprize the whole in Four Books; but which, as he had afterwards determined to diftribute the Poem into more Books, might perhaps more properly be called the Laft Book. And this is all that is executed of the new work, which, although it appeared to the Editor too valuable, even in its imperfect State, to be withholden from the Public, yet (he conceives) takes in by much too fmall a part of the original Poem to fupply its place, and to fuperfede the re-publication of it. For which reafon both the Poems are inferted in this collection.

Of Odes the Author had defigned to make up Two Books, confifting of twenty Odes each, including the feveral Odes which he had before publifhed at different

times.

The Hymn to the Naiads is reprinted from the fixth Volume of Dodley's Miscellanies, with a few Corrections and the addition of fome Notes. To the Infcriptions taken from the fame Volume three new Inscriptions are added; the last of which is the only inftance wherein liberty has been taken of inserting any thing in this Collection, which did not appear to have been intended by the Author for publication *; among whofe papers no. Copy of this was found, but it is printed

B 2

[* In the prefent Edition, a few pieces are added, which are known to be genuine, and which certainly no difcredit to their Author. But thefe are all placed at the end of the volume.]

are

printed from a Copy which he had many years fince given to the Editor.

He

The Author of thefe Poems was born at Newcastle' upon Tyne, on the 9th Day of November 1721. was educated at the Grammar School at Newcastle, and at the Univerfities of Edinburgh and Leyden, at the latter of which he took his Degree of Doctor in Phyfic. He was afterwards admitted by Mandamus to the Degree of Doctor in Phyfic in the Univerfity of Cambridge: elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Phyficians, and one of the Physicians of St. Thomas's Hofpital and upon the Eftablishment of the Queen's Household, appointed one of the Phyficians to Her Majefty. He died of a putrid Fever, on the 23d Day of June 1770, and is buried in the Parish Church of St. James's Westminster.

:

THE

̓Ασεβῶς μέν ἔσιν ἀνθρώπε τὰς παρὰ τὸ θεῖ χάρας ἀτιμάζειν.

EPICT. apud Arrian. II. 23.

Published in the Year MDCCXLIV.

B 3

T

THE DES IG N.

HERE are certain powers in human nature which seem to hold a middle place between the organs of bodily fenfe and the faculties of moral perception: They have been called by a very general name, The Powers of Imagination. Like the external senses, they relate to matter and motion; and, at the fame time, give the mind ideas analogous to those of moral approbation and diflike. As they are the inlets of some of the nioft exquisite pleasures with which we are acquainted, it has naturally happened that men of warm and fenfible tempers have fought means to recall the delightful perceptions which they afford, independent of the object which originally produced them. This gave rife to the imitative or defigning arts; fome of which, as painting and sculpture, directly copy the external appearances which were admired in nature; others, as mufic and poetry, bring them back to remembrance by figns univerfally established and understood.

But these arts, as they grew more correct and deliberate, were of courfe led to extend their imitation beyond the peculiar objects of the imaginative powers; especially poetry, which, making use of language as the inftrument by which it imitates, it confequently becomes an unlimited reprefentative of every fpecics