him. But it will be ask'd why I turn'd him into this lufcious English, (for I will not give it a worfe Word;) inftead of an Anfwer, I wou'd ask again of my Supercilious Adverfaries, whether I am not bound, when I Tranflate an Author, to do him all the right I can, and to Tranflate him to the best advantage? If to mince his meaning, which I am fatisfy'd was honeft and inftructive, I had either omitted fome part|| of what he faid, or taken from the strength of his Expreffion, I certainly had wrong'd him; and that freeness of Thought and Words, being thus cashier'd in my Hands, he had no longer been Lucretius. If nothing of this kind be to be read, Phyficians must not study Nature, Anatomies must not be seen, and fomewhat I could fay of particular Paffages in Books, which to avoid Prophaneness I do not name: But the Intention qualifies the Act; and both mine and my Author's were to inftruct as well as pleafe. 'Tis moft certain that barefac'd Bawdery is the poorest pretence to Wit imaginable: If I should fay otherwife, I fhould have two great Authorities against me: The one is the Effay on Poetry, which I publickly valued before I knew the Author of it, and with the Commendation of which my Lord Rofcomon fo happily begins his Effay on Tranflated Verfe: The other is no less than our admir'd Cowley; who fays the fame thing in other Words: For in his Ode concerning Wit, he writes thus of it; Much less can that have any place Such Such Drofs the Fire must purge away; 'tis just The Author blush, there where the Reader must. Here indeed Mr. Cowley goes farther than the Effay; for he afferts plainly that Obscenity has no place in Wit; the other only fays, 'tis a poor Pretence to it, or an ill fort of Wit, which has nothing more to support it than bare-fac'd Ribaldry; which is both unmannerly in it felf, and fulfome to the Reader. But neither of thefe will reach my cafe: For in the first place, I am only the Tranflator, not the Inventor; fo that the heaviest part of the Cenfure falls upon Lucretius, before it reaches me: In the next place, neither he nor I have us'd the groffeft Words, but the cleanlieft Metaphors we cou'd find, to palliate the broadness of the Meaning; and, to conclude, have carried the Poetical part no farther, than the Philofophical exacted. There is one Miftake of mine which I will not lay to the Printer's charge, who has enough to answer for in falfe Pointings: 'Tis in the Word Viper: I would have the Verfe run thus, The Scorpion, Love, muft on the Wound be bruis'd. There are a fort of blundering half-witted People, who make a great deal of noise about a Verbal Slip; tho' Horace would inftruct them better in true Criticism: Non ego paucis offendor maculis quas aut incuria fudit, aut humana parùm cavit natura. True Judgment in Poetry, like that in Painting, takes a view of the a whole whole together, whether it be good or not; and where the Beauties are more than the Faults, concludes for the Poet against the little Judge: 'Tis a fign that Malice is hard driven, when 'tis forc'd to lay hold on a Word or Syllable; to arraign a Man is one thing, and to cavil at him is another. In the midst of an ill natur'd Generation of Scribblers, there is always Juftice enough left in Mankind, to protect good Writers: And they too are oblig'd, both by Humanity and Intereft,to efpoufe each others caufe,against falfe Criticks, who are the common Enemies. This laft Confideration puts me in mind of what I owe to the Ingenious and Learned Tranflator of Lucretius; I have not here defign'd to rob him of any part of that Commendation which he has fo justly acquir'd by the whole Author, whofe Fragments only fall to my Portion. What I have now perform'd, is no more than I intended above twenty Years ago: The ways of our Tranflation are very different; he follows him more closely than I havë done, which became an Interpreter of the whole Poem. Itake more liberty, because it beft fuited with my Defign, which was to make him as pleafing as I could. He had been too voluminous had he us'd my Method in fo long a work, and I had certainly taken his, had I made it my business to Tranflate the whole. The Preference then is justly his; and I join with Mr. Evelyn in the confeffion of it, with this additional Advantage to him; that his Reputation is already eftablifh'd in this Poet, mine is to make its Fortune in the World. If I have been any where obfcure, in following our common Author, or if Lucretius himself is to be condemn'd, I refer my self to his excellent Annotations, Annotations, which I have often read, and always · with fome new Pleafure. My Preface begins already to fwell upon me, and looks as if I were afraid of my Reader, by fo tedious a befpeaking of him; and yet I have Horace and Theocritus upon my Hands; but the Greek Gentleman fhall quickly be dispatch'd, because I have more bufinefs with the Roman. That which diftinguishes Theocritus from all other Poets, both Greek and Latin, and which raises him even above Virgil in his Eclogues, is the inimitable Tenderness of his Paffions; and the natural Expreffion of them in Words fo becoming of a Paftoral. A Simplicity fhines through all he writes; he fhews his Art and Learning by difguifing both. His Shepherds never rife above their Country Education in their complaints of Love: There is the fame difference betwixt him and Virgil, as there is betwixt Taffo's Aminta, and the Paftor Fido of Guarini. Virgil's Shepherds are too well read in the Philofophy of Epicurus and of Plato; and Guarini's feem to have been bred in Courts. But Theocritus and Tasso have taken theirs from Cottages and Plains. It was faid of Taffo, in relation to his Similitudes, Mai efce del Bofco; That he never departed from the Woods, that is, all his Comparisons were taken from the Country: The fame may be faid of our Theocritus; he is fofter than Ovid, he touches the Paffions more delicately; and performs all this out of his own Fond,without diving into the Arts and Sciences for a Supply. Even his Dorick Dialect has an incomparable Sweetness in its Clownishness, like a fair Shepherdefs in her Country Ruffet, talking in a York a 2 fhire fhire Tone. This was impoffible for Virgil to imitates because the feverity of the Roman Language deny'd him that Advantage. Spencer has endeavour'd it in his Shepherd's Calender; but neither will it fucceed in English, for which reafon I forbore to attempt it. For Theocritus writ to Sicilians, who spoke that Dialect; and I direct this part of my Tranflations to our Ladies, who neither understand, nor will take pleafure in fuch homely Expreffions. I proceed to Horace. Take him in parts, and he is chiefly to be confider'd in his three different Talents, as he was a Critick, a Satyrift, and a Writer of Odes. His Morals are uniform, and run through all of them: For let his Dutch Commentators fay what they will,his Philofophy was Epicurean; and he made ufe of Gods and Providence, only to ferve a turn in Poetry. But fince neither his Criticisms (which are the most inftructive of any that are written in this Art) nor his Satyrs (which are incomparably beyond Juvenal's, if to laugh and rally is to be preferr'd to railing and declaiming,) are no part of my prefent Undertaking, I confine my felf wholly to his Odes: Thefe are alfo of feveral forts; fome of them are Panegyrical,others Moral,the reft Jovial, or (if I may fo call them) Bacchanalian. As difficult as he makes it, and as indeed it is, to imitate Pindar, yet in his most elevated Flights, and in the fudden Changes of his Subject with almost imperceptible Connexions, that Theban Poet is his Mafter. But Horace is of the more bounded Fancy, and confines himfelf strictly to one fort of Verfe, or Stanza in every Ode. That which will diftinguish his Style from all other Poets, is the Elegance of his Words, and the Nume र roufness |