Our audience will not of accidents, an unThey follow the anmechanick rules, and their greater knowledge, as from the difference of taftes in the two nations. They content themfelves with a thin defign, without episodes, and managed by few perfons. be pleafed but with variety derplot, and many actors. cients too fervilely, in the we affume too much licence to ourselves, in keeping them only in view, at too great a distance. But if our audience had their taftes, our poets could more easily comply with them, than the French writers could come up to the fublimity of our thoughts, or to the difficult variety of our defigns. However it be, I dare establish it for a rule of practice on the stage, that we are bound to please those whom we pretend to entertain; and that at any price, religion and good manners only excepted; and I care not much, if I give this handle to our bad illiterate poetasters, for the defence of their SCRIPTIONS, as they call them. There is a fort of merit in delighting the fpectators; which is a name more proper for them, than that of auditors: or elfe Horace is in the wrong, when he commends Lucilius for it. But thefe common places I mean to treat at greater leifure: in the mean time, fubmitting that little I have faid, to your Lordship's approbation, or your cenfure, and chufing rather to entertain you this way, as you are a judge of writing, than to opprefs your modesty with other commendations; which, though they are your due, yet would not be equally received in this fatirical and cenforious age. That which cannot without injury be denied to you, is the you eafinefs of your conversation, far from affectation or pride: not denying even to enemies their juft praises. And this, if I would dwell on any theme of this nature, is no vulgar commendation to your Lordship. Without flattery, my Lord, you have it in your nature, to be a patron and encourager of good poets, but your fortune has not yet put into your hands the opportunity of expreffing it. What will be hereafter, may be more than guefs'd, by what you are at prefent. You maintain the character of a nobleman, without that haughtiness which generally attends too many of the nobility, and when you converfe with gentlemen, you forget not that you have been of their order. You are married to the daughter of a king, who, amongst her other high perfections, has, derived from him a charming behaviour, a winning goodness, and a majestick perfon. The Mufes and the Graces are the ornaments of your family; while the Mufe fings, the Grace accompanies her voice: even the fervants of the Mufes have fometimes had the happiness to hear her; and to receive their inspirations from her. I will not give myself the liberty of going farther; for it is fo fweet to wander in a pleafing way, that I should never arrive at my journey's end. To keep myself from being belated in my letter, and tiring your attention, I must return to the place where I was fetting out. I humbly dedicate to your Lordship, my own labours in this Mifcellany: at the fame time, not arrogat ing to myself the privilege of infcribing to you, the works of others who are joined with me in this undertaking, over which can pretend no 6 right. Your lady and you have done me the favour to hear me read my translations of Ovid; and you both feemed not to be displeased with them. Whether it be the partiality of an old man to his youngest child, I know not but they appear to me the best of all my endeavours in this kind. Perhaps this poet is more easy to be tranflated than fome others, whom I have lately attempted: perhaps too, he was more according to my genius. He is certainly more palatable to the reader, than any of the Roman wits, though fome of them are more lofty, fome more inftructive, and others more correct. He had learning enough to make him equal to the beft. But as his verfe came eafily, he wanted the toil of application to amend it. He is often luxuriant both in his fancy and expreffions, and as it has lately been obferved, not always natural. If wit be pleafantry, he has it to excefs; but if it be propriety, Lucretius, Horace, and above all, Virgil are his fuperiors. I have faid fo much of him already, in my preface to his Heroical epiftles, that there remains little to be added in this place: for my own part, I have endeavoured to copy his character what I could in this tranflation, even, perhaps, farther than I should have done; to his very faults. Mr. Chapman, in his tranflation of Homer, profeffes to have done it somewhat paraphraftically, and that on fet purpose; his opinion being, that a good poet is to be tranflated in that manner. I remember not the reafon which he gives for it: but I fuppofe it is, for fear of omitting any of his excellencies: fure I am, that if it be a fault, it is much more par ; donable than that of those, who run into the other extreme of a literal and clofe tranflation, where the poet is confined fo ftreightly to his author's words, that he wants elbow-room to exprefs his elegancies. He leaves him obfcure; he leaves him profe, where he found him verse : and no better than thus has Ovid been ferved by the fo much admired Sandys. This is at least the idea which I have remaining of his translation for I never read him fince I was a boy. They who take him upon content, from the praifes which their fathers gave him, may inform their judgment by reading them again, and fee (if they understand the original) what is become of Ovid's poetry, in his version; whether it be not all, of the greatest part of it, evaporated: but this proceeded from the wrong judgment of the age in which he lived. They neither knew good verfe nor loved it; they were scholars, it is true, but they were pedants. And for a juft reward of their pedantic pains, all their tranflations want to be tranflated into English. If I flatter not myself, or if my friends have not flattered me, I have given my author's fenfe, for the most part truly: for to mistake fometimes is incident to all men, and not to follow the Dutch commentators always, may be forgiven to a man who thinks them in the general, heavy grofswitted fellows, fit only to glofs on their own dull poets. But I leave a farther fatire on their wit, till I have a better opportunity to fhew how much I love and honour them. I have likewife attempted to restore Ovid to his native sweetness, eafiness, and smoothness; and to give my poetry a kind of cadence, and, as we call it, a run of verfe, as like the original, as the English can come up to the Latin. As he feldom uses any Synalephas, fo I have endeavoured to avoid them, as often as I could: I have likewise given him his own turns, both on the words and on the thought, which I cannot fay are inimitable, because I have copied them; and fo may others, if they use the fame diligence but certainly they are wonderfully graceful in this poet. Since I have named the Synalepha, which is the cutting off one vowel immediately before another, I will give an example of it from Chapman's Homer, which lies before me; for the benefit of thofe who underftand not the Latin Profodia. It is in the first line of the argument to the first Iliad. Apollo's prieft to th' Argive fleet doth bring, &c. There we see he makes it not the Argive, but th'Argive, to shun the shock of the two vowels, immediately following each other; but, in his fecond argument, in the fame page, he gives a bad example of the quite contrary kind: Alpha the pray'r of Chryfes fings: In these words the armies, the ending with a vowel, and armies beginning with another vowel, withcut cutting off the firft, which by it had been th' armies, there remains a moft horrible illfounding gap betwixt those words. I cannot fay that I have every way observed the rule of the Synalepha in my tranflation; but wherefoever I have not, it is a fault in found: the French and the Italians have made it an inviolable pre |