your lordship, and by you the world, a rude draught of what I have been long labouring in my imagination; and what I had intended to have put in practice, (though far unable for the attempt of such a poem,) and to have left the stage, to which my genius never much inclined me, for a work which would have taken up my life in the performance of it. This too I had intended chiefly for the honour of my native country, to which a poet is particularly obliged. Of two subjects, both relating to it, I was doubtful, whether I should choose that of King Arthur conquering the Saxons, which, being farther distant in time, gives the greater scope to my invention; or that of Edward the Black Prince, in subduing Spain, and restoring it to the lawful prince, though a great tyrant, Don Pedro the Cruel: which, for the compass of time, including only the expedition of one year, for the greatness of the action, and its answerable event, for the magnanimity of the English hero, opposed to the ingratitude of the person whom he restored, and for the many beautiful episodes, which I had interwoven with the principal design, together with the characters of the chiefest English persons; (wherein, after Virgil and Spencer, I would have taken occasion to represent my living friends and patrons of the noblest families, and also shadowed the events of future ages, in the succession of our imperial line,)—with these helps,' and those of

* In the construction of this sentence, our author has suffered it to run into such an immeasurable length, that

the machines which I have mentioned, I might perhaps have done as well as some of my prede

it is not reduceable to the rules of grammar, though the meaning is sufficiently clear. The words in the former part of it," which, for the compass of time," &c. are left without a verb to which they can be applied.

2

* Dryden (says Dr. Johnson, referring to the design here delineated) "considered the epick as necessarily including some kind of supernatural agency, and had imagined a new kind of contest between the guardian angels of kingdoms, of whom he conceived that each might be represented zealous for his charge, without any intended opposition to the purposes of the Supreme Being, of which all created minds must in part be ignorant.

"This is the most reasonable scheme of celestial interposition that ever was formed. The surprises and terrours of enchantments, which have succeeded to the intrigues and oppositions of Pagan deities, afford very striking scenes, and open a vast extent to the imagination ; but as Boileau observes, and Boileau will be seldom found mistaken, with this incurable defect, that in a contest between Heaven and Hell, we know at the beginning which is to prevail: for this reason we follow Rinaldo to the enchanted wood with more curiosity than terrour.

"In the scheme of Dryden there is one great difficulty, which yet he would perhaps have had address enough to surmount. In a war justice can be but on one side, and to entitle the hero to the protection of angels, he must fight in the defence of indubitable right. Yet some of the celestial beings, thus opposed to each other, must have been represented as defending guilt.

"That this poem was never written, is reasonably to be lamented. It would doubtless have improved our numbers, and enlarged our language, and might perhaps have contributed by pleasing instruction to rectify our opinions, and purify our manners.

cessors, or at least chalked out a way for others to amend my errours in a like design; but being encouraged only with fair words by King Charles the Second, my little salary ill paid, and no prospect of a future subsistance, I was then discouraged in the beginning of my attempt; and now age has overtaken me, and want, a more insufferable evil, through the change of the times, has wholly disenabled me. Though I must ever acknowledge, to the honour of your lordship, and the eternal memory of your charity, that since this Revolution, wherein I have patiently suffered the ruin of my small fortune, and the loss of that poor subsistance which I had from two kings, whom I had served more faithfully than profitably to myself, then your lordship was pleased, out of no other motive but your own nobleness, without any desert of mine, or the least solicitation from me, to make me a most bountiful present, which at that time, when I was most in want of it, came most seasonably and unexpectedly to my relief. That favour, my lord, is of itself sufficient to bind any grateful man to a perpetual acknowledgment, and to all

What he required as the indispensable condition of such an undertaking, a publick stipend, was not likely in those times to be obtained. Riches were not become familiar to us, nor had the nation yet learned to be liberal.

"This plan he charged Blackmore with stealing; [see his preface to the FABLES:] only, says he, the guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage."

the future service which one of my mean condition can be ever able to perform. May the Almighty God return it for me, both in blessing you here, and rewarding you hereafter! I must not presume to defend the cause for which I now suffer, because your lordship is engaged against it: but the more you are so, the greater is my obligation to you, for your laying aside all the considerations of factions and parties, to do an action of pure disinteressed charity. This is one amongst many of your shining qualities, which distinguish you from others of your rank. But let me add a farther truth, that without these ties of gratitude, and abstracting from them all, I have a most particular inclination to honour you; and if it were not too bold an expression, to say, I love you. It is no shame to be a poet, though it is, to be a bad one, Augustus Cæsar of old, and Cardinal Richelieu of late, would willingly have been such; and David and Solomon were such. You, who without flattery are the best of the present age in England, and would have been so, had you been born in any other country, will receive more honour in future ages by that one excellency, than by all those honours to which your birth has entitled you, or your merits have acquired you.

ne fortè pudori

Sit tibi Musa lyræ solers, et cantor Apolle.

I have formerly said in this epistle, that I could distinguish your writings from those of any others:

it is now time to clear myself from any imputation of self-conceipt on that subject. I assume not to myself any particular lights in this discovery; they are such only as are obvious to every man of sense and judgment, who loves poetry, and understands it. Your thoughts are always so remote from the common way of thinking, that they are, as I may say, of another species than the conceptions of other poets; yet you go not out of nature for any of them. Gold is never bred upon the surface of the ground, but lies so hidden, and so deep, that the mines of it are seldom found; but the force of waters casts it out from the bowels of mountains, and exposes it amongst the sands of rivers; giving us of her bounty, what we could not hope for by our search. This success attends your lordship's thoughts, which would look like chance, if it were not perpetual, and always of the same tenour. If I grant that there is care in it, it is such a care as would be ineffectual and fruitless in other men: it is the curiosa felicitas which Petronius ascribes to Horace, in his Odes. We have not wherewithal to imagine so strongly, so justly, and so pleasantly in short, if we have the same knowledge, we cannot draw out of it the same quintessence; we cannot give it such a turn, such a propriety, and such a beauty... Something is deficient in the manner, or the words, but more in the nobleness of our conception. Yet when you have finished all, and it appears in its full lustre, when the diamond is not only found, but the roughness smoothed, when it is cut into a