called him. The latter part of my poem, which describes the Fire, I owe, first to the piety and fa therly affection of our monarch to his fuffering fubjects; and, in the fecond place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both which were fo confpicuous, that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deferve. I have called my poem Hiftorical, not Epic, though both the actions and actors are as much heroic as any poem can contain. But since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the last fucceffes, I have judged it too bold a title for a few ftanzas, which are little more in number than a single Iliad, or the longest of the Æneids. For this reafon (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too feverely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with thofe, who rank Lucan, rather among historians in verfe, than Epic poets: in whose room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chofen to write my poem in quatrains, or ftanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the found and number, than any other verfe in ufe amongst us; in which I am fure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the flavery of any rhyme; and were less constrained in the quantity of every fyllable, which they might vary with fpondees or dactyls, befides fo many other helps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one fyllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the sense of all the reft. But in this neceffity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verse most easy, though not fo proper for this occafion for there the work is fooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labour of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together. For thofe, who write correctly in this kind, must needs acknowlege, that the laft line of the stanza is to be confidered in the compofition of the firft. Neither can we give our felves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the fake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes; all which our fathers practifed: and for the female rhymes, they are still in use amongst other nations; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately; as, those who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of their later agree with me. poems, will And befides this, they write in Alexandrins, or verses of fix feet; such as amongst us is the old tranflation of Homer by Chapman: all which, by lengthning of their chain, makes the fphere of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too long upon the choice of my ftanza, which you may remember is much better defended in the preface to Gondibert; and therefore I will haften to acquaint you with my endeavours in the writing. In general I will only fay, I have never yet seen the defcription of any naval fight in the proper terms which are used at fea: and if there be any fuch, in another language, as that of Lucan in the third of his Pharfalia, yet I could not avail myself of it in the English; the terms of art in every tongue bearing more of the idiom of it than any other words. We hear indeed among our poets, of the thundering of guns, the smoke, the diforder, and the flaughter; but all these are common notions. And certainly, as thofe, who, in a logical difpute keep in general terms, would hide a fallacy; fo those, who do it in any poetical description, would veil their ignorance. Defcriptas fervare vices operumque colores, For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea, yet I have thought it no shame to learn; and if I have made fome few mistakes, 'tis only, as you can bear me witnefs, because I have wanted opportunity to correct them; the whole poem being first written, and now.fent you from a place, where I have not fo much as the converfe of any feaman. Yet though the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was more than recompenfed by the pleasure. I found myself fo warm in celebrating the praises of military men, two such especially as the prince and general, that it is no wonder if they infpired me with thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well fatisfied, that, as they are incomparably the best subject I ever had, excepting only the royal family, so also, that this I have written of them is much better than what I have performed on any other. I have been forced to help out other arguments; but this has been bountiful to me they have been low and barren of praise, and I have exalted them, and made them fruitful; but here----Omnia fponte fua reddit juftiffima tellus. I have had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field; fo fertile, that without my cultivating, it has given me two harvests in a fummer, and in both oppreffed the reaper. All other greatness in fubjects is only counterfeit : it will not endure the teft of danger; the greatness of arms is only real: other greatness burdens a nation with its weight; this fupports it with its ftrength. And as it is the happiness of the age, fo it is the peculiar goodness of the best of kings, that we may praise his subjects without offending him. Doubtless it proceeds from a juft confidence of his own virtue, which the luftre of no other can be fo great as to darken in him; for the good or the valiant are never fafely praised under a bad or a degenerate prince. But to return from this digreffion to a farther account of my poem; I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, so |