1 See his Tempest, his Funeral Sports, his Combat of Turnus and Æneas; and in his Georgics, (which I esteem the divinest part of all his writings,) The Plague, the Country, the Battle of the Bulls, the Labour of the Bees; and those many other excellent images of Nature, most of which are neither great in themselves, nor have any natural Ornament to bear them up; but the words wherewith he describes them are so excellent, that it might be well applied to him which was said by Ovid, Materiam superabat opus.' The very sound of his words has often somewhat that is connatural to the subject; and while we read him, we sit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what he represents. To perform this, he made frequent use of tropes, which, you know, change the nature of a known word by applying it to some other signification; and this is it which Horace means in his Epistle to the Pisos : Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum But I am sensible I have presumed too far, to entertain you with a rude discourse of that art which you both know so well, and put into practice with so much happiness. Yet before I leave Virgil, I must own the vanity to tell you, and by you the world, that he has been my master in this Poem: I have followed him every where; I know not with what success, but I am sure with diligence enough my images are many of them copied from him, and the rest are imitations of him. My expressions also are as near as the idioms of the two languages would admit of in translation. And this, Sir, I have done with that boldness for which I will stand accountable to any of our little critics, who, perhaps, are no better acquainted with him than I am. Upon your first perusal of this Poem, you have taken notice of some words which I have innovated (if it be too bold for me to say, refined) upon his Latin; which, as I offer not to introduce into English prose, so I hope they are neither improper, nor altogether unelegant in verse; and in this, Horace will again defend me. Et nova, fictaque nuper, habebunt verba fidem, The inference is exceeding plain: for, if a Roman poet might have liberty to coin a word, supposing only that is was derived from the Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he used this liberty but seldom and with modesty; how much more justly may I challenge that privilege to do it, with the same prerequisites, from the best and most judicious of Latin writers? In some places, where either the fancy or the words were his, or any other's, I have noted it in the margin, that I might not seem a plagiary; in others I have neglected it, to avoid as well tediousness as the affectation of doing it too often. Such descriptions or images, well wrought, (which I promise not for mine,) are, as I have said, the adequate delight of heroic poesy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object; as the images of the burlesque, which is contrary to this, by the same reason, beget laughter: for the one shows Nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shows her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a fool with distorted face, and antic gestures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it is a deviation from nature. But though the same images serve equally for the epic poesy, and for the historic and panegyric, which are branches of it, yet a several sort of sculpture is to be used in them. If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal, 'stantes in curribus Æmiliani,' heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full proportion; others are to be like that of Virgil, 'spirantia mollius æra:' there is somewhat more of softness and tenderness to be shown in them. You will soon find I write not this without concern. Some, who have seen a paper of verses which I wrote last year to her Highness the Duchess, have accused them of that only thing I could defend in them. They said, I did, humi serpere;' that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words to set it off. I might well answer with that of Horace, nunc non erat his locus;' I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not farther bribe your candour, or the reader's. I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them.* And now, Sir, it is time I should relieve you from the tedious length of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclusion, I must leave my Poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the number of those of whom the younger Pliny speaks; Nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant;' I am rather too secure of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors may make you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider that they come into the world with your approbation, and through your hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and therefore I hope it will stir you up to make my Poem fairer by many of your blots; if not, you know the story of the gamester, who married the rich man's daughter, and, when her father denied the portion, christened all the children by his surname, that if, in conclusion, they must beg, they should do so by one name as well as by the other. But since the reproach of my faults will light on you, it is but reason I should do you that justice to the readers, to let them * A copy of verses, here introduced, to Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, will be found in vol. iii. of Dryden's poems. |