ments from the public, which may enable me to proceed in my undertaking with fome chearfulness. And this I dare affure the world before-hand, that I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleafing task than Virgil, (though I fay not the tranflation will be lefs laborious.) For the Grecian is more according to my genius, than the Latin poet. In the works of the two authors we may read their manners, and natural inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet, fedate temper, Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words: Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties both of numbers, and of expreffions, which his language, and the age in which he lived, allowed him: Homer's invention was more copious, Virgil's more confined: so that if Homer had not led the way, it was not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry : for, nothing can be more evident, than that the Roman poem is but the fecond part of the Ilias; a continuation of the fame ftory: and the perfons already formed: the manners of Æneas are those of Hector

fuperadded to thofe which Homer gave him. The Adventures of Ulyffes in the Odyffeis are imitated in the first Six Books of Virgil's neis: and though the accidents are not the fame, (which would have argued him of a fervile copying, and total barrenness of invention) yet the feas were the fame, in which both the heroes wandered; and Dido cannot be denied to be the poetical daughter of Calypfo. The fix latter books of Virgil's poem are the four and twenty Iliads contracted: a quarrel occafioned by a lady, a fingle combat, battles fought, and a town befieged. I fay not this in derogation to Virgil, neither do I contradict any thing which I have formerly faid in his juft praife: for his Episodes are almost wholly of his own invention; and the form, which he

has given to the telling, makes the tale his own, even though the original ftory had been the fame. But this proves, however, that Homer taught Virgil to design and if invention be the first virtue of an Epic poet, then the Latin poem can only be allowed the fecond place. Mr. Hobbs, in the preface to his own bald translation of the Ilias, (ftudying poetry as he did mathematicks, when it was too late) Mr. Hobbs, I fay, begins the praise of Homer where he fhould have ended it. He tells us, that the first beauty of an Epic poem confifts in diction, that is, in the choice of words, and harmony of numbers: now, the words are the colouring of the work, which in the order of nature is laft to be confidered. The defign, the difpofition, the manners, and the thoughts, are all before it where any of those are wanting or imperfect, fo much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life; which is in the very definition of a poem. Words indeed, like glaring colours, are the firit beauties that arife, and ftrike the fight: but if the draught be falfe or lame, the figures illdifpofed, the manners obfcure or inconfiftent, or the thoughts unnatural, then the finest colours are but daubing, and the piece is a beautiful monster at the beft. Neither Virgil nor Homer were deficient in any of the former beauties; but in this last, which is expreffion, the Roman poet is at leaft equal to the Grecian, as I have faid elsewhere; fupplying the poverty of his language by his mufical ear, and by his diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being fo different in their tempers, one choleric and fanguine, the other phlegmatic and melancholic; that which makes them excel in their several ways, is, that each of them has followed his own natural inclination, as well in forming the defign, as in the execution of it. The very heroes fhew their authors; Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful, Impiger, Ira

cundus, inexorabilis, acer, &c. Æneas patient, confiderate, careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies ever fubmiffive to the will of heaven, quò fata trabunt, retrabuntque, fequamur. I could please myfelf with enlarging on this fubject, but am forced to defer it to a fitter time. From all I have faid I will only draw this inference, that the action of Homer being more full of vigour than that of Virgil, according to the temper of the writer, is of confequence more pleafing to the reader. One warms you by degrees; the other fets you on fire all at once, and never intermits his heat. "Tis the fame difference which Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in Demofthenes, and Tully, One perfuades; the other commands. You never cool while you read Homer, even not in the fecond book, (a graceful flattery to his countrymen); but he haftens from the fhips, and concludes not that book till he has made you an amends by the violent playing of a new machine. From thence he hurries on his action with variety of events, and ends it in lefs compafs than two months. This vehemence of his, I confefs, is more fuitable to my temper; and therefore I have tranflated his first book with greater pleasure than any part of Virgil: but it was not a pleasure without pains: the continual agitations of the fpirits muft needs be a weakning of any conftitution, especially in age; and many pauses are required for refreshment betwixt the heats; the Iliad of it felf being a third part longer than all Virgil's works together.

This is what I thought needful in this place to fay of Homer. I proceed to Ovid and Chaucer; confidering the former only in relation to the latter. With Qvid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue : from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were not unlike: both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous, and li

bertine, at least in their writings, it may be alfo in their lives. Their studies were the fame, philofophy and philology. Both of them were known in aftronomy, of which Ovid's books of the Roman feafts, and Chaucer's treatife of the Aftrolabe, are fufficient witneffes. But Chaucer was likewife an aftrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Perfius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness: neither were great inventors; for Ovid only copied the Grecian fables; and most of Chaucer's 'ftories were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their predeceffors. Boccace his Decameron was first published; and from thence our Englishman has borrowed many of his Canterbury tales: yet that of Palamon and Arcite was written in all probability by fome Italian wit, in a former age; as I fhall prove hereafter: the tale of Grizild was the invention of Petrarch; by him fent to Boccace; from whom it came to Chaucer: Troilus and Creffida was alfo written by a Lombard author; but much amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the genius of our countrymen in general being rather to improve an invention, than to invent themselves; as is evident not only in our poetry, but in many of our manufactures. I find I have anticipated already, and taken up from Boccace before I come to him: but there is so much less behind; and I am of the temper of moft kings, who love to be in debt, are all for prefent money, no matter how they pay it afterwards: befides, the nature of a preface is rambling; never wholly out of the way, nor in it. This I have learned from the practice of honeft Montaign, and return at my pleasure to Ovid and Chau cer, of whom I have little more to fay. Both of them built on the inventions of other men; yet fince Chaucer had fomething of his own, as The Wife of Bath's Tale, The Cock and the Fox, which I have tranf lated, and fome others, I may justly give our coun

tryman the precedence in that part; fince I can remember nothing of Ovid which was wholly his. Both of them underftood the manners, under which name I comprehend the paffions, and, in a larger sense, the defcriptions of perfons, and their very habits: for an example, I fee Baucis and Philemon as perfectly before me, as if fome antient painter had drawn them; and all the pilgrims in the Canterbury tales, their humours, their features, and the very drefs, as diftinctly as if I had fupped with them at the Tabard in Southwark yet even there too the figures in Chaucer are much more lively, and fet in a better light: which though I have not time to prove; yet I appeal to the reader, and am fure he will clear me from partiality. The thoughts and words remain to be confidered in the comparison of the two poets; and I have faved myself one half of that labour, by owning that Ovid lived when the Roman tongue was in its meridian; Chaucer, in the dawning of our language: therefore that part of the comparison stands not on an equal foot, any more than the diction of Ennius and Ovid; or of Chaucer and our prefent English. The words are given up as a poft not to be defended in our poet, because he wanted the modern art of fortifying. The thoughts remain to be confidered: and they are to be measured only by their propriety; that is, as they flow more or less naturally from the persons defcribed, on fuch and fuch occafions. The vulgar judges, which are nine parts in ten of all nations, who call conceits and jingles wit, who fee Ovid full of them, and Chaucer altogether without them, will think me little less than mad, for preferring the Englishman to the Roman yet, with their leave, I muft prefume to fay, that the things they admire are only glittering trifles, and fo far from being witty, that in a serious poem they are naufeous, because they are unnatural. Would any man, who is ready to die for love, defcribe