Advertisement. THE following Translations were selected from many others done by the Author in his Youth; for the most part indeed but a fort of Exercises, while he was improving himself in the Languages, and carried by his early bent to Poetry to perform them rather in Verse than Profe, Mr. Dryden's Fables came out about that time, which occafioned the Translations from Chaucer. They were first separately printed in Mifcellanies by J. Tonfon and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the Quarto Edition of 1717. The Imitations of English Authors, which follow, were done as early, fome of them at fourteen or fifteen years old, Advertisement. THE hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer's House of Fame. The defign is in a manner entirely altered, the defcriptions and moft of the particular thoughts my own; yet I could not fuffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title: wherever any hint is taken from him, the paffage itself is fet down in the marginal notes. The Poem is introduced in the manner of the Provençal Poets, whofe works were for the most part Vifions, or pieces of imagination, and conftantly defcriptive. From thefe, Petrarch and Chaucer frequently borrowed the idea of their poems. See the Trionfi of the former, and the Dream, Flower and the Leaf, &c. of the latter. The Author of this therefore chofe the fame fort of Exordium. IN Call forth the greens, and wake the rifing flowers; When opening buds falute the welcome day, And earth relenting feels the genial ray; As balmy sleep had charm'd my cares to rest, And, join'd, this intellectual scene compofe. I ftood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies; The whole creation open to my eyes: IMITATION. In Ver. 11, &c.] Thefe verfes are hinted from the fol lowing of Chaucer, Book ii. Though beheld I fields and plains, Now hills, and now mountains, Now valeis, and now foreftes, |