The First PART. WRITTEN In the Time of the Late Wars. Corrected and Amended, With Several ADDITIONS and ANNOTATIONS. LONDON: Printed by E. P. for Geo. Sawbridge, in TO THE READER. Oeta nafcitur non fit, is a Sentence of as great Truth as Antiquity; it being most certain, that all the acquir'd Learning imaginable is infufficient to compleat a Poet, without a Natural Genius, and Propensity to fo Noble and Sublime an Art. And we may without Offence observe that many very Learned Men, who have been ambitious to be thought Poets, have only render'd themfelves Obnoxious to that Satyrical Infpiration, our Author wittily in vokes ; Which made them, though it were in spight Of Nature, and their Stars to write. On the other fide, fome who have had very little Human Learning, but were endued with a large share of Shakespear, D'Ave- Natural Wit and Parts have become the most Cele= nant, c. brated Poets of the Age they lived in. But as these last are Rare Aves in Terris, fo when the Muses have not difdained the Affiftances of other Arts and Sciences, we are then blefs'd with thofe lafting Monuments of Wit and Learning, which may justly claim a kind of Eternity upon Earth. And our Author, had his Modefty permitted him, might with Horace, have faid, Exegi Monumentum Ære peren nius; Or with Ovid, Jamque opus Exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere Vetuftas. Th The Author of this Celebrated Poem, was of this laft Compofition; for altho' he had not the Happiness of an Academical Education, as fome affirm, it may be perceiv'd, throughout his whole Poem, that he had read much, and was very well accomplifhed in the most useful Parts of Human Learning. Rapin (in his Reflections) Speaking. of the neceffary Qualities belonging to a Poet; tells us, he must have a Genius extraordinary, great Natural Gifts, a Wit Juft, Fruitful, Piercing, Solid, and Univerfal; an Understanding, clean and diftinct; an Imagination, neat and pleasant; an Elevation of Soul, that depends not one ly on Art or Study, but is purely a Gift of Heaven, which must be fustain'd by a lively Senfe and Vivacity; Judgment to confi der wifely of Things, and Vivacity for the Beautiful Expreffion of them, &c. Now, how justly this Character is due to our Author, I leave to the Impartial Reader, and thofe of nicer Judgments, who |