TO THE

METROPOLIS OF GREAT BRITAIN,

THE MOST RENOWN'D AND LATE FLOURISHING CITY OF LONDON, IN ITS REPRESENTATIVES THE LORD MAYOR AND COURT OF ALDERMEN, THE SHERIFFS, AND COMMON COUNCIL OF IT

As perhaps I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation; so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he who was to give the first example of such a dedication should begin it with that city, which has set a pattern to all others of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Other cities have been prais'd for the same virtues, but I am much deceiv'd if any have so dearly purchas'd their reputation; their fame has been won them by cheaper trials than an expensive, tho' necessary war, a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire. To submit yourselves with that humility to the judgments of Heaven, and at the same time to raise yourselves with that vigor above all human enemies; to be combated at once from above and from below, to be struck down and to triumph; I know not whether such trials have been ever parallel'd in any nation: the resolution and successes of them never can be. Never had prince or people more mutual reason to love each other, if suffering for each other can indear affection. You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, thro' many difficulties; he, thro' a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the interposition of many rivals, who violently ravish'd and withheld you from him and certainly you have had your share in sufferings. But Providence has cast upon you want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's necessities; and the rest of your afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure, (frequent examples of them having been in the reign of the most excellent princes,) than occasions for the manifesting of your Christian and civil virtues. To you, therefore, this Year of Wonders is justly dedieated, because you have made it so. You, who are to stand a wonder to all years and ages, and who have built yourselves an immortal

monument on your own ruins. You are now a Phoenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity. But Heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miserable. I have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation: Providence is engag'd too deeply, when the cause becomes so general. And I cannot imagine it has resolv'd the ruin of that people at home which it has blest abroad with such successes. I am therefore to conclude that your sufferings are at an end; and that one part of my poem has not been more an history of your destruction, than the other a prophecy of your restoration. The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, so is by none more passionately desir'd than by,

The greatest of your admirers, and
Most humble of your servants,
JOHN DRYDEN.

I AM SO many ways oblig'd to you, and so little able to return your favors, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been solicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long since I gave you the trouble of perusing a play for me, and now, instead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr ; you could never suffer in a nobler cause. For I have chosen the most heroic subject which any poet could desire; I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of a most just and necessary war: in it, the care, management, and prudence of our king; the conduct and valor of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and

Ehree glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have, in the fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagin'd the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast, and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not serving my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost oblig'd to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobless of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written this but to a person who has been ever forward to appear in all employments whither his honor and generosity have call'd him. The later part of my poem, which describes the fire, I owe first to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both which were so conspicuous, that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. I have call'd my poem historical, not epic, tho' both the actions and actors are as much heroic as any poem can contain. But since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplish'd in the last successes, I have judg'd it too bold a title for a few stanzas, which are little more in number than a single Iliad, or the longest of the Eneids. For this reason (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too severely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with those who rank Lucan rather among historians in verse, than epic poets: in whose room, if I am not deceiv'd, Silius Italicus, tho' a worse writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judg'd them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us; in which I am sure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the slavery of any rhyme; and were less constrain'd in the quantity of every syllable, which they might vary with spondaes or dactiles, besides so many other helps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one syllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the sense of all the rest. But in this necessity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verse most easy, (tho' not so proper for this occasion,) for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labor of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together. For those

who write correctly in this kind must needs acknowledge that the last line of the stanza is to be consider'd in the composition of the first. Neither can we give ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the sake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes; all which our fathers practic'd: and for the female rhymes, they are still in use amongst other nations; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately; as those who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. And besides this, they write in Alexandrins, or verses of six feet; such as amongst us is the old translation of Homer, by Chapman; all which, by length'ning of their chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too long upon the choice of my stanza, which you may remember is much better defended in the preface to Gondibert; and therefore I will hasten to acquaint you with my endeavors in the writing. In general I will only say, I have never yet seen the description of any naval fight in the proper terms which are us'd at sea; and if there be any such in another language, as that of Lucan in the third of his Pharsalia, yet I could not prevail myself of it in the English; the terms of art in every tongue bearing more of the idiom of it than any other words. We hear indeed among our poets, of the thund'ring of guns, the smoke, the disorder, and the slaughter; but all these are common notions. And certainly as those who, in a logical dispute, keep in general terms, would hide a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical description would veil their ignorance:

Descriptas servare vices operumque colores, Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, poeta salutor? For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea, yet I have thought it no shame to learn; and if I have made some few mistakes, 't is only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted opportunity to correct them; the whole poem being first written, and now sent you, from a place where I have not so much as the converse of any seaman. Yet, tho' the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was more than recompens'd by the pleasure: I found myself so warm in celebrating the praises of military men, two such especially as the prince and general, that it is no wonder if they inspir'd me with thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well satisfied that, as they are incomparably the best subject I have ever had, excepting only the royal family; so also, that this I have written of them is much better than what I have perform'd on any

other. I have been forc'd to help out other arguments; but this has been bountiful to me: they have been low and barren of praise, and I have exalted them, and made them fruitful; but here - Omnia sponte sua reddit justissima tellus. I have had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field; so fertile that without my cultivating it has given me two harvests in a summer, and in both oppress'd the reaper. All other greatness in subjects is only counterfeit; it will not endure the test of danger; the greatness of arms is only real: other greatness burdens a nation with its weight; this supports it with its strength. And as it is the happiness of the age, so it is the peculiar goodness of the best of kings, that we may praise his subjects without offending him. Doubtless it proceeds from a just confidence of his own virtue, which the luster of no other can be so great as to darken in him; for the good or the valiant are never safely prais'd under a bad or a degenerate prince.

But to return from this digression to a farther account of my poem; I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have endeavor'd to adorn it with noble thoughts, so much more to express those thoughts with elocution. The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction) is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges thro' the field of memory, till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent. Wit written is that which is well defin'd, the happy result of thought, or product of imagination. But to proceed from wit, in the general notion of it, to the proper wit of an heroic or historical poem, I judge it chiefly to consist in the delightful imaging of persons, 'actions, passions, or things. 'Tis not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis, (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme,) nor the jingle of a more poor paronomasia; neither is it so much the morality of a grave sentence, affected by Lucan, but more sparingly us'd by Virgil; but it is some lively and apt description, dress'd in such colors of speech that it sets before your eyes the absent object as perfectly and more delightfully than nature. So then, the first happiness of the poet's imagination is properly invention, or finding of the thought; the second is fancy, or the variation, deriving, or molding of that thought, as the judgment represents it proper to the subject; the third is elocution, or the art of clothing and adorning that thought, so found and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding words: the quick

ness of the imagination is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expression. For the two first of these, Ovid is famous amongst the poets; for the later, Virgil. Ovid images more often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating between two contrary passions, or extremely discompos'd by one: his words therefore are the least part of his care; for he pictures nature in disorder, with which the study and choice of words is inconsistent. This is the proper wit of dialogue or discourse, and consequently of the drama, where all that is said is to be suppos'd the effect of sudden thought; which, tho' it excludes not the quickness of wit in repartees, yet admits not a too curious election of words, too frequent allusions, or use of tropes, or in fine anything that shews remoteness of thought or labor in the writer. On the other side, Virgil speaks not so often to us in the person of another, like Ovid, but in his own: he relates almost all things as from himself, and thereby gains more liberty than the other, to express his thoughts with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to confess as well the labor as the force of his imagination. Tho' he describes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her passions, yet he must yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althæa, of Ovid; for, as great an admirer of him as I am, I must acknowledge, that if I see not more of their souls than I see of Dido's, at least I have a greater concernment for them: and that convinces me that Ovid has touch'd those tender strokes more delicately than Virgil could. But when action or persons are to be describ'd, when any such image is to be set before us, how bold, how masterly are the strokes of Virgil! We see the objects he represents us with in their native figures, in their proper motions; but so we see them, as our own eyes could never have beheld them so beautiful in themselves. We see the soul of the poet, like that universal one of which he speaks, informing and moving thro' all his pictures:

Totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. We behold him embellishing his images, as he makes Venus breathing beauty upon her son Eneas:

ther 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
Reddiderit junctura novum —

But I am sensible I have presum'd 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 follow'd him everywhere, 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 accomptable to any of our little critics, who, perhaps, are not 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 refin'd) 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, si
Græco fonte cadant, parce detorta

The inference is exceeding plain: for if a Roman poet might have liberty to coin a word, supposing only that it was deriv'd from the Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he us'd 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 shews nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shews her deform'd, 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 tho' 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 us'd in them. If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal, Stantes in curribus Emiliani, heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full proportion; others are to be like that of Virgil, Spirantia mollius ara: there is somewhat more of softness and tenderness to be shewn 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 accus'd 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 address'd 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 endeavor, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defense. But I will not farther bribe your candor 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, 't 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 candor 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 thro' your hands. I beg from you the greatest favor 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, christen'd 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, 't is but reason I should do you that justice to the readers, to let them know, that if there be anything tolerable in this poem, they owe the argument to your