ture to those puerilities; but no elegant turns either on the word or on the thought. Then I confulted a greater genius (without offence to the manes of that noble author) I mean Milton; but, as he endeavours every where to exprefs Homer, whose age had not arrived to that fineness, I found in him a true fublimity, lofty thoughts, which were clothed with admirable Grecisms, and ancient words, which he had been digging from the mines of Chaucer and Spenfer, and which, with all their rufticity, had somewhat of venerable in them. But I found not there neither that for which I looked. At laft I had recourfe to his mafter, Spenfer, the author of that immortal poem called The Fairy Queen; and there I met with that which I had been looking for fo long in vain. Spenfer had ftudied Virgil to as much advantage as Milton had done Homer; and amongst the rest of his excellencies had copied that. Looking farther into the Italian, I found Taffo had done the fame; nay more, that all the fonnets in that language, are on the turn of the first thought; which Mr. Walsh, in his late ingenious preface to his poems, has obferved. In short, Virgil and Ovid are the two principal fountains of them in Latin poem. And the French at this day are fo fond of them, that they judge them to be the first beauties. "Delicate & bien tourné," are the highest commendations which they beflow on fomewhat which they think a master-piece.

An example on the turn of words, amongst a thoufand others, is that in the laft book of Ovid's MetaMorphofes :

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"Heu quantum fcelus eft, in vifcera, vifcera condi! "Congeftoque avidum pinguefcere corpore corpus; "Alteriufque animantem animantis vivere lèto!"

An example on the turn both of thoughts and words, is to be found in Catullus; in the complaint of Ariadne, when he was left by Thefeus:

"Tum jam nulla viro juranti fœmina credat; "Nulla viri fperet fermones effe fideles :

"Qui dum aliquid cupiens animus prægeftît apifci, "Nil metuunt jurare; nihil promittere parcunt. "Sed fimul ac cupidæ mentis fatiata libido eft, "Dicta nihil metuere; nihil perjuria curant." An extraordinary turn upon the words, is that in Ovid's Epiftolæ Heroidum, of Sappho to Phaon: "Si nifi quæ formâ poterit te digna videri, "Nulla futura tua eft; nulla futura tua eft."

Laftly, a turn which I cannot fay is abfolutely on words, for the thought turns with them, is in the fourth Georgique of Virgil; where Orpheus is to receive his wife from hell, on express condition not to look on her till fhe was come on earth:

"Cùm fubita incautum dementia cepit Amantem;

Ignofcenda quidem, fcirent fi ignofcere manes."

I will not burden your Lordship with more of them; for I write to a mafter, who understands them better than myself. But I may fafely conclude them to be great beauties: I might defcend also to the mechanic beauties

beauties of heroic verfe; but we have yet no English profodia, not fo much as a tolerable dictionary, or a grammar; fo that our language is in a manner barbarous; and what government will encourage any one, or more, who are capable of refining it, I know not but nothing under a public expence can go through with it. And I rather fear a declination of the language, than hope an advancement of it in the present age.

I am still speaking to you, my Lord: though, in all probability, you are already out of hearing. Nothing, which my meannefs can produce, is worthy of this long attention. But I am come to the last petition of Abraham: if there be ten righteous lines, in this vaft preface, spare it for their fake; and alfo fpare the next city, because it is but a little one.

I would excufe the performance of this tranflation, if it were all my own; but the better, though not the greater part being the work of fome gentlemen, who have fucceeded very happily in their undertaking; let their excellencies atone for my imperfections, and those of my fons. I have perused some of the fatires, which are done by other hands; and they feem to me as perfect in their kind, as any thing I have seen in English verfe. The common way which we have taken, is not a literal tranflation, but a kind of paraphrafe; or fomewhat which is yet more loose, betwixt a paraphrafe and imitation. It was not poffible for us, or any men, to have made it pleasant any other way. If rendering the exact fenfe of those authors,

almoft line for line, had been our business, Barten Holiday had done it already to our hands: and, by the help of his learned notes and illustrations, not only Juvenal and Perfius, but what is yet more obscure, his own verses, might be understood.

. But he wrote for fame, and wrote to scholars: we write only for the pleasure and entertainment of those gentlemen and ladies, who, though they are not fcholars, are not ignorant: perfons of understanding

good fenfe; who not having been converfant in the original, or at least not having made Latin verse fo much their bufinefs as to be critics in it, would be glad to find, if the wit of our two great authors be answerable to their fame and reputation in the world. We have therefore endeavoured to give the publick all the fatisfaction we are able in this kind.

And if we are not altogether fo faithful to our author, as our predeceffors, Holiday and Stapylton; yet we may challenge to ourselves this praise, that we fhall be far more pleafing to our readers. We have followed our authors at greater diftance, though not step by step, as they have done. For oftentimes they have gone fo clofe, that they have trod on the heels of Juvenal and Perfius, and hurt them by their too near approach. A noble author would not be purfued too close by a tranflator. We lose his fpirit, when we think to take his body. The groffer part remains with us, but the foul is flown away, in fome noble expreffion, or fome delicate turn of words, or thought. Thus Holiday, who made this way his choice, feized

the

the meaning of Juvenal; but the poetry has always scaped him.

They who will not grant me, that pleasure is one of the ends of poetry, but that it is only a means of compaffing the only end, which is inftruction; must yet allow, that without the means of pleasure, the inftruction is but a bare and dry philofophy; a crude preparation of morals, which we may have from Ariftotle and Epictetus, with more profit than from any poet: neither Holiday nor Stapylton have imitated Juvenal, in the poetical part of him, his diction and his elocution. Nor had they been poets, as neither of them were; yet in the way they took, it was impoffible for them to have fucceeded in the poetic part.

The English verse, which we call heroic, confifts of more than ten fyllables; the Latin hexameter fometimes rifes to seventeen; as for example, this verse in Virgil: "Pulverulenta putrem fonitu quatit ungula campum." Here is the difference of no less than seven syllables in a line betwixt the English and the Latin. Now the. medium of thefe, is about fourteen fyllables; because the dactyle is a more frequent foot in hexameters than the spondee.

But Holiday, without confidering that he writ with the disadvantage of four fyllables lefs in every verse, endeavours to make one of his lines to comprehend the fenfe of one of Juvenal's. According to the falfity of the propofition was the fuccefs. He was forced to crowd his verfe with ill-founding monofyllables, of which our barbarous language affords him a wild

plenty :