fication; and this is it which Horace means in his Epistle to the Pisos:

'Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum
Reddiderit junctura novum.'

But I am sensible I have presumed too far to entertain you 5 with a rude discourse of that art which you both know so well, and put into practice with so much happiness. Yet ⚫ before I leave Virgil, I must own the vanity to tell you, and by you the world, that he has been my master in this poem: I have followed him everywhere, I know not with 10 what success, but I am sure with diligence enough: my images are many of them copied from him, and the rest are imitations of him. My expressions also are as near as the idioms of the two languages would admit of in translation. And this, Sir, I have done with that boldness for which I 15 will stand accountable to any of our little critics, who, perhaps, are not better acquainted with him than I am. Upon your first perusal of this poem, you have taken notice of some words which I have innovated (if it be too bold for me to say refined) upon his Latin; which, as I offer not 20 to introduce into English prose, so I hope they are neither improper nor altogether unelegant in verse; and in this Horace will again defend me:

2

'Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem si
Græco fonte cadent parce detorta.'

25

The inference is exceeding plain; for if a Roman poet might have liberty to coin a word, supposing only that it was derived from the Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he used this liberty but seldom and with modesty; how much more justly may I challenge that privi- 30 lege to do it with the same pre-requisites, from the best and most judicious of Latin writers? In some 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 seem a plagiary; in others I have neglected it, to avoid as well tediousness 35 as the affectation of doing it too often. Such descriptions or images, well wrought, which I promise not for mine,

are, as I have said, the adequate delight of heroic poesy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object; as the images of the burlesque, which is contrary to this, by the same reason beget laughter; for the one shows nature 5 beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shows her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a fool with distorted face and antic gestures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it is a deviation from nature. But though the same images serve equally to for the epic poesy, and for the historic and panegyric, which are branches of it, yet a several sort of sculpture is to be used in them. If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal, Stantes in curribus Æmiliani, heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots and in their full proportion; others are 15 to be like that of Virgil, Spirantia mollius æra: there is somewhat more of softness and tenderness to be shown in them. You will soon find I write not this without concern. Some, who have seen a paper of verses which I wrote last year to her Highness the Duchess, have accused them of that 20 only thing I could defend in them. They have said, I did bumi serpere, that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words to set it off. I might well answer with that of Horace, Nunc non erat his locus; I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of 25 expression and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not farther bribe your candour, or the reader's. 30 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.

VERSES TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS,

On the Memorable Victory gained by the Duke against the Hollanders, June 3, 1665, and on her Journey afterwards into the North.

MADAM,

WHEN for our sakes your hero you resigned

To swelling seas and every faithless wind,
When you released his courage and set free

A valour fatal to the enemy,

You lodged your country's cares within your breast,
The mansion where soft love should only rest,
And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,
The noblest conquest you had gained at home.
Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide !
Your honour gave us what your love denied:
And 'twas for him much easier to subdue
Those foes he fought with than to part from you.
That glorious day, which two such navies saw
As each unmatched might to the world give law,
Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,
Held to them both the trident of the sea:

The winds were hushed, the waves in ranks were cast
As awfully as when God's people past,

Those yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,

5

IO

15

20

These where the wealth of nations ought to flow.
Then with the Duke your Highness ruled the day;
While all the brave did his command obey,
The fair and pious under you did pray.

How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and tide
You bribed to combat on the English side.
Thus to your much-loved lord you did convey
An unknown succour, sent the nearest way;
New vigour to his wearied arms you brought,
(So Moses was upheld while Israel fought,)
While from afar we heard the cannon play,
Like distant thunder on a shiny day.

D

30

35

For absent friends we were ashamed to fear
When we considered what you ventured there.
Ships, men, and arms our country might restore,
But such a leader could supply no more.

5 With generous thoughts of conquest he did burn,
Yet fought not more to vanquish than return.
Fortune and victory he did pursue

To bring them as his slaves to wait on you:
Thus beauty ravished the rewards of fame
10 And the fair triumphed when the brave o'ercame.
Then, as you meant to spread another way
By land your conquests far as his by sea,
Leaving our southern clime, you marched along
The stubborn North, ten thousand Cupids strong.
15 Like Commons, the nobility resort

In crowding heaps to fill your moving court:
To welcome your approach the vulgar run,
Like some new envoy from the distant sun,
And country beauties by their lovers go,
20 Blessing themselves and wondering at the show.
So, when the new-born phoenix first is seen,
Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,
And while she makes her progress through the East,
From every grove her numerous train's increast;
25 Each poet of the air her glory sings,

And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.

And now, Sir, 'tis time I should relieve you from the tedious length of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the 30 public to detain you longer. In conclusion, 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 those, of whom the younger Pliny speaks; Nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium 35 vocant: I am rather too secure of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors may make you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider 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 absent person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and, therefore, I hope it will stir you up to make my poem 5 fairer by many of your blots. If not, you know the story of the gamester who married the rich man's daughter and, when her father denied the portion, christened all the children by his surname, that, if in conclusion they must beg, they should do so by one name as well as by the other. But 10 since the reproach of my faults will light on you, 'tis but reason I should do you that justice to the readers to let them know, that, if there be anything tolerable in this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the 15 care of it to your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all things who is,

Sir,

The most obedient

and most faithful of your servants,

From Charlton, in Wiltshire,

Nov. 10, 1666.

JOHN DRYDEN.