I

SIR,

AM fo many ways obliged to you, and fo little able to return your favours, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your noblenefs, but you have been follicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long fince I gave you the trouble of perufing a play for me, and now, inftead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a Poem. But, fince you are to bear this perfecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr; you could never fuffer in a nobler caufe. For I have chofen the most heroic fubject, which any Poet could defire: I have taken upon me to defcribe the motives, the beginning, progress, and fucceffes, of a most just and neceffary war; in it, the care, manage

ment, and prudence of our king; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and feamen; and three glorious victories, the refult of all. After this, I have, in the fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest argument that can be imagined; the deftruction being fo fwift, fo fudden, fo vast and miferable, as nothing can parallel in ftory. The former part of this Poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not ferving my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobles of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written this, but to a perfon who has been ever forward to appear in all employments whither his honour and generofity have called him. The latter part of my Poem, which defcribes the fire, I owe, first to the piety and fatherly 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 HISTORICAL, not EPIC, though both the actions and actors are as much heroic, as any poem can contain. But, fince the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the laft fucceffes, I have judged it too bold a title for a few ftanzas, which are little more in number than a fingle Iliad, or the longest of the Eneids. For this reafon (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too feverely to the laws of hiftory) I am apt to agree

with thofe, who rank Lucan rather among Hiftorians in verfe, than Epic poets: In whose room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worfe writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chosen 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 lefs conftrained in the quantity of every fyllable, which they might vary with Spondees 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 fenfe of all the reft. But in this neceffity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verfe most eafy, 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 fo, but to bear along in his head the troublefome fenfe of four lines together. For those, who write correaly in this kind, muft needs acknowledge, that the last line of the ftanza is to be confidered in the compofition of the first. Neither can we give ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verfe for the fake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or ufing the variety of female rhymes, all which our fathers practifed: And for the female rhymes, they are

C

ftill in ufe amongst other nations; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promifcuously, with the French alternately; as those who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. And befides this, they write in Alexandrins, or verfes of fix feet; fuch as amongst us is the old tranflation of Homer by Chapman : All which, by lengthning of their chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too long upon the choice of my stanza, 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 feen the defcription of any naval fight in the proper terms which are ufed 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 myfelf 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 fmoke, the disorder, and the flaughter; but all thefe are common notions. And, certainly, as thofe who, in a logical difpute, keep in general terms, would hide a fallacy; fo thofe, who do it in any poetical defcription, would veil the ignorance.

"Defcriptas fervare vices, operumque colores, "Cur ego, fi nequeo ignoroque, Poeta falutor?" For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the fea, yet I have thought it no fhame 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 feamen. Yet, tho' 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 praife of military men, two fuch efpecially as the Prince and General, that it is no wonder if they inspired 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; fo alfo, 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, withont my cultivating, it has given me two harvefts in a Summer, 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 burthens a nation with its weight; this fupports it with its strength. And as it is the happiness of the age, fo it is the peculiar goodnefs of the best of kings, that we may praife his fubjects without offending him. Doubtlefs 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 praifed under a bad or 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, fo much more to