PREFACE prefixed to the FABLES.

IT is with a poet as with a man who defigns to build,

and is very exact, as he supposes, in cafting up the coft beforehand; but, generally fpeaking, he is mistaken in his account, and reckons fhort in the expence he first intended: he alters his mind as the work proceeds, and will have this or that convenience more, of which he had not thought when he began. So has it happened to me: I have built a house, where I intended but a lodge yet with better fuccefs than a certain nobleman, who, beginning with a dog-kennel, never lived to finish the palace he had contrived.

From tranflating the first of Homer's Iliads (which I intended as an essay to the whole work) I proceeded to the tranflation of the twelfth book of Ovid's Metamorphofes, because it contains, among other things, the caufes, the beginning, and ending of the Trojan war : here I ought in reason to have stopped; but the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses lying next in my way, I could not balk them. When I had compaffed them, I was fo taken with the former part of the fifteenth book (which is the master-piece of the whole Metamorphofes), that I enjoined myself the pleafing task of rendering it into English. And now I found, by the number of my veries, that they began to fwell into a little volume;

which gave me an occafion of looking backward on fome beauties of my author, in his former books: there occurred to me the hunting of the boar, Cinyras and Myrrha, the good-natured ftory of Baucis and Philemon, with the reft, which I hope I have tranflated closely enough, and given them the fame turn of verfe which they had in the original; and this, I may fay without vanity, is not the talent of every poet: he who has arrived the nearest to it, is the ingenious and learned Sandys, the best verfifier of the former age; if I may properly call it by that name which was the former part of this concluding century. For Spenfer and Fairfax both flourished in the reign of queen Elizabeth; great mafters in our language; and who faw much farther into the beauties of our numbers, than thofe who immediately followed them. Milton was the poetical fon of Spenfer, and Mr. Waller of Fairfax; for we have our lineal defcents and clans, as well as other families Spenfer more than once infinuates, that the foul of Chaucer was transfufed into his body; and that he was begotten by him two hundred years after his deceafe. Milton has acknowledged to me, that Spenfer was his original; and many befides myself have heard our famous Waller own, that he derived the harmony of his numbers from the Godfrey of Bulloign, which was turned into English by Mr. Fairfax. But to return: having done with Ovid for this time, it came into my mind, that our old English poct Chaucer in many things refembled him, and that with no difadvantage on

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the fide of the modern author, as I fhall endeavour to prove when I compare them; and as I am, and always have been, ftudious to promote the honour of my native country, so I foon refolved to put their merits to the trial, by turning fome of the Canterbury tales into our language, as it is now refined; for by this means both the poets being fet in the fame light, and dressed in the fame English habit, ftory to be compared with story, a certain judgment may be made betwixt them, by the reader, without obtruding my opinion on him: or if I feem partial to my countryman, and predeceffor in the laurel, the friends of antiquity are not few: and befides many of the learned, Ovid has almost all the beaux, and the whole fair fex, his declared patrons. Perhaps I have affumed fomewhat more to myself than they allow me because I have adventured to fum up the evidence: but the readers are the jury; and their privilege remains entire to decide according to the merits of the caufe, or if they please, to bring, it to another hearing, before some other court. In the mean time, to follow the thread of my difcourfe (as thoughts, according to Mr. Hobbes, have always fome connexion) fo from Chaucer I was led to think on Boccace, who was not only his contempo rary, but also purfued the fame ftudies; wrote novels in profe, and many works in verfe; particularly is faid to have invented the octave rhyme, or ftanza of eight lines, which ever fince has been maintained by the prac tice of all Italian writers, who are, or at leaft affume the title of, Heroic Poets: he and Chaucer, among

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other things, had this in common, that they refined their mother tongues; but with this difference, thar Dante had begun to file their language, at least in verse, before the time of Boccace, who likewife received no little help from his master Petrarch. But the reformation of their profe was wholly owing to Boccace himself, who is yet the standard of purity in the Italian tongue; though many of his phrases are become obfolete, as in process of time it must needs happen. Chaucer (as you have formerly been told by our learned Mr. Rymer) first adorned and amplified our barren tongue from the Provencall, which was then the most polished of all the | modern languages; but this fubject has been copiously treated by that great critic, who deferves no little commendation from us his countrymen. For these reasons of time, and resemblance of genius in Chaucer and Boccace, I refolved to join them in my present work; to which I have added fome original papers of my own ; which whether they are equal or inferior to my other poems, an author is the most improper judge; and therefore I leave them wholly to the mercy of the reader. I will hope the beft, that they will not be condemned; but if they fhould, I have the excufe of an old gentleman, who, mounting on horseback before fome ladies, when I was prefent, got up fomewhat heavily, but defired of the fair fpectators, that they would count fourfcore and eight before they judged him. By the mercy of God, I am already come within twenty years of his number, a cripple in my limbs; but what decays

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are in my mind, the reader must determine. I think myself as vigorous as ever in the faculties of my foul, excepting only my memory, which is not impaired to any great degree; and if I lose not more of it, I have no great reason to complain. What judgment I had, increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, fuch as they are, come crowding in fo faft upon me, that my only difficulty is to chufe or to reject; to run them into verfe, or to give them the other harmony of prose. I have so long studied and practised both, that they are grown into a habit, and become familiar to me. In fhort, though I may lawfully plead some part of the old gentleman's excufe; yet I will referve it till I think I have greater need, and ask no grains of allowance for the faults of this my prefent work, but those which are given of course to human frailty. I will not trouble my reader with the shortness of time in which I writ it, or the several intervals of sickness: they who think too well of their own performances, are apt to boast in their prefaces how little time their works have cost them; and what other bufinefs of more importance interfered; but the reader will be as apt to ask the question, why they allowed not a longer time to make their works more perfect? and why they had so despicable an opinion of their judges, as to thrust their indigested stuff upon them, as if they deferved no better?

With this account of my present undertaking, I conclude the first part of this discourse: in the second part, as at a second fitting, though I alter not the draught, I muft touch the fame features over again, and change the VOL. III.

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