to you that can frame much better; yet let me beg leave that, by dedicating them to your fervice, I may have the honour of telling the world, that I am obliged to your Lordship; and that I am most entirely IT PREFACE. T is endeavoured, in the following Poems, to give the Readers of both fexes fome ideas of the Art of Love; fuch a Love as is innocent and virtuous, and whofe defires terminate in prefent happiness and that of pofterity. It would be in vain to think of doing it without help from the Ancients, amongst whom none: has touched that paffion more tenderly and justly than Ovid. He knew that he bore the mafterfhip in that Art; and therefore, in the Fourth Book De Tristibus, when he would give fome account of himself to future ages, he calls himfelf "Tenerorum Lufor Amorum," as if he gloried principally in the defcriptions he had made of that paffion. The prefent imitation of him is at leaft fuch a one as Mr. Dryden mentions, "to be an endeavour of a "later Poet to write like one who has written before. "him on the fame fubject; that is, not to tranflate his "words, or be confined to his fenfe, but only to fet "him as a pattern, and to write as he fuppofes that "Author would have done, had he lived in our age "and in our country. But he dares not fay that Sir "John Denham *, or Mr. Cowley, have carried this *Mr. Dryden alludes to "The Destruction of "Troy, &c." N. 3 "Libertine "Libertine way, as the latter calls it, fo far as this "definition reaches." But, alas! the prefent Imitator has come up to it, if not perhaps exceeded it. Sir John Denham had Virgil, and Mr. Cowley had Pindar, to deal with, who both wrote upon lafting foundations: but, the prefent fubject being Love, it would be unreasonable to think of too great a confinement to be laid on it. And though the paffion and grounds of it will continue the fame through all ages; yet there will be many little modes, fashions, and graces, ways of complaifance and address, entertainments and diverfions, which time will vary. Since the world will expect new things, and perfons will write, and the Ancients have fo great a fund of Learning; whom can the Moderns take better to copy than fuch originals? It is moft likely they may not come up to them; but it is a thousand to one but their imitation is better than any clumfy invention of their own. Whoever undertakes this way of writing, has as much reafon to understand the true scope, genius, and force of the expreflions of his Author, as a literal Translator: and, after all, he lies under this misfortune, that the faults are all his own; and, if there is any thing that may feem pardonable, the Latin* at the bottom fhews to whom he is engaged for it. An Imitator and his Author ftand *In the first editions of the "Art of Cookery," and of the "Art of Love," Dr. King printed the original under the refpective pages of his tranflations. N. much much upon the fame terms as Ben does with his Father in the Comedy *: "What thof he be my Father, I an't bound Prentice 66 "to 'en." There were many reasons why the Imitator tranfpofed feveral Verfes of Ovid, and has divided the whole into Fourteen Parts, rather than keep it in Three Books. These may be too tedious to be recited; but, among the reft, fome were, that matters of the fame fubje&t. might lie more compact; that too large a heap of precepts together might appear too. burthenfome; and therefore (if fmall matters may allude to greater) as. Virgil in his "Georgicks," fo here most of the parts end with fome remarkable Fable, which carries with it fome Moral: yet, if any perfons please to take the Six first Parts as the Firft Book, and divide the Eight laft, they may make Three Books of them again. There have by chance fome twenty lines crept into the Poem out of the "Remedy of Love," which (as inanimate things are generally the most wayward and provoking) fince they would stay, have been fuffered to stand there. But as for the Love here mentioned, it being all pru-dent, honourable, and virtuous, there is no need of any remedy to be prescribed for it, but the fpeedy ob- · taining of what it defires. Should the Imitator's style feem not to be fufficiently reftrained, should he not have afforded pains for review or correction, let it be * Congreve's Love for Love. N." |