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things. 'Tis not the jerk or fting of an epigram, nor the feeming contradiction of a poor antithefis (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme) nor the gingle of a more poor Paranomafia; neither is it fo much the morality of a grave sentence, affected by Lucan, but more fparingly used by Virgil; but it is fome lively and apt defcription, dreffed in fuch colours of fpeech, that it fets before your eyes the absent object, as perfectly, and more delightfully than nature. So then the first happiness of the poet's imagination is properly invention or finding of the thought; the fecond is fancy, or the variation, deriving or moulding of that thought as the judgment represents it proper to the fubject; the third is elocution, or the art of cloathing and adorning that thought, fo found and varied, in apt, fignificant, and founding words: the quicknefs of the imagination is feen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expreffion. For the two first of thefe, Ovid is famous amongst the poets; for the latter, Virgil. Ovid images more often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating between two contrary paffions, or extremely difcompofed by one. His words therefore are the leaft part of his care; for he pictures nature in diforder, with which the study and choice of words is inconfiftent. This is the proper wit of dialogue or difcourfe, and confequently of the drama, where all that is faid is to be fuppofed the effect of fudden thought; which, though it excludes not the quicknefs of wit in repartees, yet admits not a too curious election of words, too frequent allufions, or ufe of tropes, or in fine any thing that fhews remoteness of thought or labour in the writer. On the other fide, Virgil fpeaks not fo often to us in the perfon of another, like Ovid, but in his own: he relates

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almost all things as from himself, and thereby gains more liberty than the other, to express his thoughts with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to confess as well the labour as the force of his imagination. Though he defcribes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her paffions, yet he muft yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althaea, of Ovid; for as great an admirer of him as I am, I must acknowledge, that if I fee not more of their fouls than I fee of Dido's, at leaft I have a greater concernment for them: and that convinces me, that Ovid has touched thofe tender ftrokes more delicately than Virgil could. But when action or perfons are to be described, when any fuch image is to be fet before us, how bold, how masterly are the ftrokes of Virgil! We fee the objects he presents us with in their native figures, in their proper motions; but fo we fee them, as our own eyes could never have beheld them fo beautiful in themfelves. We fee the foul of the poet, like that univerfal one of which he fpeaks, informing and moving through all his pictures :

-Totamque infufa per artus

Mens agitat molem, & magno fe corpore mifcet.

We behold him embellishing his images, as he makes Venus breathing beauty upon her fon Æneas.

lumenque juventæ

Purpureum, & lætos oculis affiqfat honores:
Quale manus addunt Ebori decus, aut ubi flavo
Argentum Pariufve lapis circundatur auro.

See his Tempeft, his Funeral Sports, his Combat of Turnus and Æneas: and in his Georgics, which I efteem the divineft part of all his writings, the Plague, the Country, the Battle of the Bulls, the

Labour

Labour of the Bees, and thofe many other excellent images of nature, most of which are neither great in themselves, nor have any natural ornament to bear them up: but the words wherewith he describes them are so excellent, that it might be well applied to him, which was faid by Ovid, Materiam fuperabat opus: the very found of his words has often fomewhat that is connatural to the subject; and while we read him, we fit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what he reprefents. To perform this, he made frequent ufe of tropes, which you know change the nature of a known word, by applying it to fome other fignification; and this is it which Horace means in his epiftle to the Pifo's:

Dixeris egregiè, notum fi callida verbum
Reddiderit jun&ura novum

But I am fenfible I have presumed too far to entertain you with a rude difcourfe of that art, which you both know fo well, and put into practice with fo much happiness. Yet before I leave Virgil, I muft own the vanity to tell you, and by you the world, that he has been my master in this poem: I have followed him every where, I know not with what fuccefs, but I am fure with diligence enough: my images are many of them copied from him, and the reft are imitations of him. My expreffions alfo are as near as the idioms of the two languages would admit of in tranflation. And this, Sir, I have done with that boldnefs, for which I will ftand accountable to any of our little critics, who, perhaps, are no better acquainted with him than I am. Upon your first perufal of this poem, you have taken notice of fome words, which I have innovated (if it be too bold for me to fay refined) upon his Latin; which, as I offer not to introduce into English profe,

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fo I hope they are neither improper, nor altogether inelegant in verfe; and, in this, Horace will again defend me.

Et nova, fictaque nuper, habebunt verba fidem, fi
Græco fonte cadunt, parcè detorta--

The inference is exceeding plain: for if a Roman poet might have liberty to coin a word, fuppofing only that it was derived from the Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he used this liberty but feldom, and with modefty; how much more juftly may I challenge that privilege to do it with the fame prerequifites, from the beft and moft judicious of Latin writers? In fome places, where either the fancy or the words were his, or any other's, I have noted it in the margin, that I might not feem a plagiary; in others I have neglected it, to avoid as well tedioufness, as the affectation of doing it too often. Such descriptions or images well wrought, which I promise not for mine, are, as I have faid, the adequate delight of heroic poefy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object; as the images of the burlefque, which is contrary to this, by the fame reafon beget laughter: for the one fhews nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other fhews her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a fool with distorted face and antique geftures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it is a deviation from nature. But though the fame images ferve equally for the Epic poefy, and for the hiftoric and panegyric, which are branches of it, yet a feveral fort of fculpture is to be used in them. If fome of them are to be like thofe of Juvenal, Stantes in curribus Æmiliani, heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full proportion; others are to be like that of Virgil, Spirantia VOL. I. mollius

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50 mollius ara: there is fomewhat more of softness and tenderness to be fhewn in them. You will foon find I write not this without concern. Some, who have

feen a paper of verfes, which I wrote laft year to her Highness the Dutchefs, have accufed them of that only thing I could defend in them. They faid, I did humi ferpere, that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words, to fet it off. I might well anfwer with that of Horace, Nunc non erat his locus; I knew I addreffed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expreffion, and the fmoothnefs of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to fay I have fucceeded. I deteft arrogance; but there is fome difference betwixt that and a juft defence. But I will not farther bribe your candor, or the reader's. I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them.

And now, Sir, 'tis time I fhould relieve you from the tedious length of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclufion, I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the number of thofe, of whom the younger Pliny fpeaks; Nec funt parum multi, qui carpere amicos fuos judicium vocant: I am rather too secure of you on that fide. Your candor in pardoning my errors may make you more remifs in correcting them; if you will not withal confider that they come into the world with your approbation, and through your hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an abfent perfon, fince I repofe upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and therefore I hope

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