PREFACE. BY BISHOP BURNET. THERE is no way of writing so proper, for the refining and polishing a language, as the translating of books into it, if he that undertakes it has a competent skill of the one tongue, and is a master of the other. When a man writes his own thoughts, : the heat of his fancy, and the quickness of his mind, carry him so much after the notions themselves, that for the most part he is too warm to judge of the aptness of words, and the justness of figures; so that he either neglects these too much, or over-does them but when a man translates, he has none of these heats about him and therefore the French took no ill method, when they intended to reform and beautify their language, in setting their best writers on work to translate the Greek and Latin authors into it. There is so little praise got by translations, that a man cannot be engaged to it out of vanity, for it has passed for a sign of a slow mind, that can amuse itself with so mean an entertainment; but we begin to grow wiser, and though ordinary translators must succeed ill in the esteem of the world, yet some have appeared of late that will, I hope, bring that way of writing in credit. The English language has wrought itself out, both of the fulsome pedantry under which it laboured long ago, and the trifling way of dark and unintelligible wit that came after that, and out of the coarse extravagance of canting that succeeded this; but as one extreme commonly produces another, so we were beginning to fly into a sublime pitch of a strong but false rhetoric, which had much corrupted, not only the stage, but even the pulpit; two places, that though they ought not be named together, much less to resemble one another; yet it cannot be denied but, the rule and measure of speech is generally taken from them; but that florid strain is almost quite worn out, and is become now as ridiculous as it was once admired. So that without either the expense or labour that the French have undergone, our language has, like a rich wine, wrought out its tartar, and is insensibly brought to a purity that could not have been compassed without much labour, had it not been for the great advantage that we have of a prince, who is so great a judge, that his single approbation or dislike has almost as great an authority over our language, as his prerogative gives him over our coin. We are now so much refined, that how defective soever our imaginations or reasonings may be, yet our language has fewer faults, and is more natural and proper than it was ever at any time before. When one compares the best writers of the last age, with those that excel in this, the difference is very discernible; even the great Sir Francis Bacon, that was the first that wrote our language correctly; as he is still our best author, yet in some places has figures so strong, that they could not pass now before a severe judge. I will not provoke the present masters of the stage, by preferring the authors of the last age to them for though they all acknowledge that they come far short of B. Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, yet I believe they are better pleased to say this themselves, than to have it observed by others. Their language is now certainly more proper, and more natural than it was formerly, chiefly since the correction that was given by the Rehearsal; and it is to be hoped that the essay on poetry, which may be well matched with the best pieces of its kind that even Augustus's age produced, will have a more powerful operation, if clear sense, joined with home but gentle reproofs, can work more on our writers than that unmerciful exposing of them has done. : I have now much leisure, and want diversion, so I have bestowed some of my hours upon translations, in which I have proposed no ill patterns to myself: but the reader will be best able to judge whether I have copied skilfully after such origi |