; us, we had certainly found a better account of Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, and Trajan, who were virtuous Emperors; and he would have given the principles of their actions a contrary turn. But it is not my business to defend Tacitus ; neither dare I decide the preference betwixt him and our Polybius. They are equally profitable and instructive to the reader; but Tacitus more useful to those who are born under a monarchy, Polybius to those who live in a republick. What may farther be added concerning the history of this author, I leave to be performed by the elegant translator of his work. DEDICATION OF THE THIRD PART OF POETICAL MISCELLANIES. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MY LORD, THESE Miscellany Poems are by many titles yours. The first they claim, from your acceptance of my promise to present them to you, before some of them were yet in being. The rest are derived from your own merit, the exactness of your judgment in poetry, and the candour of your nature, easy to forgive some trivial faults, when they come accompanied with countervailing beauties. But after all, though these are your equi 5 This collection was published in octavo in 1693, under the title of EXAMEN POETICUM; being the Third Part of Miscellany Poems, &c. 6 Francis, Lord Radcliffe, was the eldest son of Francis, Earl of Derwentwater, by Catharine, daughter of Sir William Fenwick, of Meldon, in the county of Northumberland, and widow of Lawson, of Grove, in the county of York, Esq. He married in August 1687, in the life-time of his father, Mary Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles the Second, who was born in October 1673. table claims to a dedication from other poets, yet I must acknowledge a bribe in the case, which is your particular liking of my verses. It is a vanity common to all writers, to overvalue their own productions; and it is better for me to own this failing in myself, than the world to do it for me. For what other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study? Why am I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame? The same parts and application which have made me a poet, might have raised me to any honours of the gown; which are often given to men of as little learning and less honesty than myself. No government has ever been, or ever can be, wherein timeservers and blockheads will not be uppermost. The persons are only changed, but the same jugglings in state, the same hypocrisy in religion, the same self-interest and mismanagement will remain for ever. Blood and money will be lavished in all ages, only for the preferment of new faces with old consciences. There is too Her mother was Mary Davies, who was an actress in the Duke of York's Company in 1664, and according to Downes, the prompter, had been bred up in Lady D'Avenant's house. She is said to have gained the King's heart by singing several wild mad songs, in D'Avenant's RIVALS, 1668, altered from Fletcher's Two NOBLE KINSMEN, particularly that beginning with the words— "My lodging is on the cold ground," &c. Lord Radcliffe, on the death of his father in 1696-7, became Earl of Derwentwater, and died April 29th, 1705. often a jaundice in the eyes of great men; they see not those whom they raise in the same colours with other men: all whom they affect look golden to them, when the gilding is only in their own distempered sight.' These considerations have given me a kind of contempt for those who have risen by unworthy ways. I am not ashamed to be little, when I see them so infamously great. Neither do I know why the name of Poet should be dishonourable to me, if I am truly one, as I hope I am; for I will never do any thing that shall dishonour it. The notions of morality are known to all men. None can pretend ignorance of those ideas which are inborn in mankind; and if I see one thing, and practise the contrary, I must be disingenuous not to acknowledge a clear truth, and base to act against the light of my own conscience. For the reputation of my honesty, no man can question it, who has any of his own; for that of my poetry, it shall either stand by its own merit, or fall for want of it. Ill writers are usually the sharpest censors; for they (as the best poet and the best patron said,) When in the full perfection of decay, 8 So Pope, in his ESSAY ON CRITICISM : 8 These lines are quoted from Lord Dorset's Verses addressed" to Mr. Edward Howard, on his incomparable incomprehensible Poem, called THE BRITISH PRINCES :" Thus the corruption of a poet is the generation of a critick, I mean of a critick in the general ac formerly they were quite They were defenders of ceptation of this age; for another species of men. poets, and commentators on their works ;-to illustrate obscure beauties; to place some passages in a better light; to redeem others from malicious interpretations; to help out an author's modesty, who is not ostentatious of his wit; and, in short, to shield him from the ill-nature of those fellows, who were then called Zoili and Momi, and now take upon themselves the venerable name of censors. But neither Zoilus, nor he who endeavoured to defame Virgil, were ever adopted into the name of criticks by the ancients. What their reputation was then, we know; and their successors in this age deserve no better. Are our auxiliary forces turned our enemies? Are they, who at best are but wits of the second order, and whose only credit amongst readers is what they obtained by being subservient to the fame of writers, are these become rebels, of slaves; and usurpers, of subjects? Or, to speak in the most honourable terms of them, are they, from our seconds, become principals against us? Does the ivy undermine the oak, which supports its weakness? What labour would it cost them to put in a better line than the worst * Wit, like tierce-claret, when it begins to pall, Neglected lies, and 's of no use at all; "But, in its full perfection of decay, * Turns vinegar, and comes again in play.” |