Lay by Virgil, I beseech your Lordship, and all my better sort of judges, when you take up my version; and it will appear a passable beauty when the original Muse is absent. But, like Spenser's false Florimel made of snow, it melts and vanishes when the true one comes in sight. I will not excuse, but justify myself for one pretended crime, with which I am liable to be charg'd by false critics, not only in this translation, but in many of my original poems — that I Latinize too much. 'Tis true that, when I find an English word significant and sounding, I neither borrow from the Latin or any other language; but, when I want at home, I must seek abroad.

If sounding words are not of our growth and manufacture, who shall hinder me to import them from a foreign country? I carry not out the treasure of the nation, which is never to return; but what I bring from Italy, I spend in England: here it remains, and here it circulates; for, if the coin be good, it will pass from one hand to another. I trade both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native language. We have enough in England to supply our necessity; but, if we will have things of magnificence and splendor, we must get them by commerce. Poetry requires ornament; and that is not to be had from our old Teuton monosyllables: therefore, if I find any elegant word in a classic author, I propose it to be naturaliz'd, by using it myself; and, if the public approves of it, the bill passes. But every man cannot distinguish betwixt pedantry and poetry: every man, therefore, is not fit to innovate. Upon the whole matter, a poet must first be certain that the word he would introduce is beautiful in the Latin; and is to consider, in the next place, whether it will agree with the English idiom. After this, he ought to take the opinion of judicious friends, such as are learned in both languages; and, lastly, since no man is infallible, let him use this license very sparingly; for, if too many foreign words are pour'd in upon us, it looks as if they were design'd not to assist the natives, but to conquer them.

I am now drawing towards a conclusion, and suspect your Lordship is very glad of it. But permit me first to own what helps I have had in this undertaking. The late Earl of Lauderdale sent me over his new trans

lation of the Eneis, which he had ended before I ingag'd in the same design. Neither did I then intend it; but, some proposals being afterwards made me by my bookseller, I desir'd his Lordship's leave that I might accept them, which he freely granted; and I have his letter yet to shew for that permission. He resolv'd to have printed his work; which he might have done two years before I could publish mine; and had perform'd it, if death had not prevented him. But having his manuscript in my hands, I consulted it as often as I doubted of my author's sense; for no man understood Virgil better than that learned nobleman. His friends, I hear, have yet another and more correct copy of that translation by them, which had they pleas'd to have given the public, the judges must have been convinc'd that I have not flatter'd him. Besides this help, which was not inconsiderable, Mr. Congreve has done me the favor to review the Eneis, and compare my version with the original. I shall never be asham'd to own that this excellent young man has shew'd me many faults, which I have endeavor'd to correct. 'Tis true, he might have easily found more, and then my translation had been more perfect.

Two other worthy friends of mine, who desire to have their names conceal'd, seeing me straiten'd in my time, took pity on me, and gave me the Life of Virgil, the two Prefaces to the Pastorals and the Georgics, and all the arguments in prose to the whole translation; which, perhaps, has caus'd a report that the two first poems are not mine. If it had been true that I had taken their verses for my own, I might have gloried in their aid; and, like Terence, have farther'd the opinion that Scipio and Lælius join'd with me. But the same style being continued thro' the whole, and the same laws of versification observ'd, are proofs sufficient that this is one man's work; and your Lordship is too well acquainted with my manner to doubt that any part of it is

another's.

That your Lordship may see I was in earnest when I promis'd to hasten to an end, I will not give the reasons why I writ not always in the proper terms of navigation, land service, or in the cant of any profession. I will only say that Virgil has avoided those proprieties, because he writ not to

mariners, soldiers, astronomers, gard'ners, peasants, &c., but to all in general, and in particular to men and ladies of the first quality, who have been better bred than to be too nicely knowing in the terms. In such cases, 't is enough for a poet to write so plainly, that he may be understood by his readers; to avoid impropriety, and not affect to be thought learn'd in all things.

I have omitted the four preliminary lines of the First Æneid, because I think them inferior to any four others in the whole poem, and consequently believe they are not Virgil's. There is too great a gap betwixt the adjective vicina in the second line, and the substantive arva in the latter end of the third, which keeps his meaning in obscurity too long, and is contrary to the clearness of his style.

Ut quamvis avidis

is too ambitious an ornament to be his; and Gratum opus agricolis

are all words unnecessary, and independent of what he had said before.

Horrentia Martis arma

is worse than any of the rest. Horrentia is such a flat epithet as Tully would have given us in his verses. "T is a mere filler, to stop a vacancy in the hexameter, and connect the preface to the work of Virgil. Our author seems to sound a charge, and begins like the clangor of a trumpet:

Arma virumque cano, Trojœ qui primus ab oris · scarce a word without an r, and the vowels for the greater part sonorous. The prefacer began with Ille ego, which he was constrain'd to patch up in the fourth line with at nunc, to make the sense cohere; and if both those words are not notorious botches, I am much deceiv'd, tho' the French translator thinks otherwise. For my own part, I am rather of the opinion that they were added by Tucca and Varius, than retrench'd.

I know it may be answer'd by such as think Virgil the author of the four lines, that he asserts his title to the Eneis in the beginning of this work, as he did to the two former in the last lines of the Fourth Georgic. I will not reply otherwise to this than by desiring them to compare these four lines with the four others, which we know are his, because no poet but he alone could

write them. If they cannot distinguish creeping from flying, let them lay down Virgil, and take up Ovid de Ponto in his stead. My master needed not the assistance of that preliminary poet to prove his claim. His own majestic mien discovers him to be the king, amidst a thousand courtiers. It was a superfluous office; and therefore I would not set those verses in the front of Virgil, but have rejected them to my own preface.

I, who before, with shepherds in the groves,
Sung to my oaten pipe their rural loves,
And, issuing thence, compell'd the neighb'ring
field

A plenteous crop of rising corn to yield, Manur'd the glebe, and stock'd the fruitful plain,

(A poem grateful to the greedy swain) &c.

If there be not a tolerable line in all these six, the prefacer gave me no occasion to write better. This is a just apology in this place, but I have done great wrong to Virgil in the whole translation. Want of time, the inferiority of our language, the inconvenience of rhyme, and all the other excuses I have made, may alleviate my fault, but cannot justify the boldness of my undertaking. What avails it me to acknowledge freely that I have not been able to do him right in any line? For even my own confession makes against me; and it will always be return'd upon me: Why then did you attempt it?" To which no other answer can be made, than that I have done him less injury than any of his former libelers.

What they call'd his picture had been drawn at length, so many times, by the daubers of almost all nations, and still so unlike him, that I snatch'd up the pencil with disdain; being satisfied beforehand that I could make some small resemblance of him, tho' I must be content with a worse likeness. A Sixth Pastoral, a Pharmaceutria, a single Orpheus, and some other features, have been exactly taken; but those holiday authors writ for pleasure, and only shew'd us what they could have done, if they would have taken pains to perform the whole.

Be pleas'd, my Lord, to accept with your wonted goodness this unworthy present which I make you. I have taken off one trouble from you, of defending it, by acknowledging its imperfections; and, tho' some part of them are cover'd in the verse,

(as Erichthonius rode always in a chariot, to hide his lameness,) such of them as cannot be conceal'd, you will please to connive at, tho', in the strictness of your judgment, you cannot pardon. If Homer was allow'd to nod sometimes in so long a work, it will be no wonder if I often fall asleep. You took my Aureng-Zebe into your protection, with all his faults; and I hope here cannot be so many, because I translate an author who gives me such examples of correctness. What my jury may be, I know not; but 't is good for a criminal to plead before a favorable judge. If I had said partial, would your Lordship have forgiven me? Or will you give me leave to acquaint the world that I have many times been oblig'd to your bounty since the Revolution? Tho' I never was reduc'd to beg a charity, nor ever had the impudence to ask one, either of your Lordship, or your noble kinsman the Earl of Dorset, much less of any other; yet, when I least expected it, you have both remember'd me. So inherent it is in your family not to forget an old servant. It looks rather like ingratitude on my part, that, where I have been so often oblig'd, I have appear'd so seldom to return my thanks, and where I was also so sure of being well receiv'd. Somewhat of laziness was in the case, and somewhat too of modesty, but nothing of disrespect or of unthankfulness. I will not say that your Lordship has encourag'd me to this presumption, lest, if my labors meet with no success in public, I may expose your judgment to be censur'd. As for my own enemies, I shall never think them worth an answer; and, if your Lordship has any, they will not dare to arraign you for want of knowledge in this art, till they can produce somewhat better of their own than your Essay on Poetry. "T was on this consideration that I have drawn out my preface to so great a length. Had I not address'd to a poet, and a critic of the first magnitude, I had myself been tax'd for want of judgment, and sham'd my patron for want of understanding. But neither will you, my Lord, so soon be tir'd as any other, because the discourse is on your art; neither will the learned reader think it tedious, because it is ad clerum. At least, when he begins to be weary, the church doors are open. That I may pursue the allegory with a short prayer after a long sermon:

May you live happily and long, for the service of your country, the encouragement of good letters, and the ornament of poetry; which cannot be wish'd more earnestly by any man, than by

Your Lordship's most humble, Most oblig'd, and most obedient Servant, JOHN DRYDEN.

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE ENEIS

THE ARGUMENT

The Trojans, after a seven years' voyage, set sail for Italy, but are overtaken by a dreadful storm, which Eolus raises at Juno's request. The tempest sinks one, and scatters the rest. Neptune drives off the Winds, and calms the sea. Eneas, with his own ship, and six more, arrives safe at an African port. Venus complains to Jupiter of her son's misfortunes. Jupiter comforts her, and sends Mercury to procure him a kind reception among the Carthaginians. Æneas, going out to discover the country, meets his mother in the shape of an huntress, who conveys him in a cloud to Carthage, where he sees his friends whom he thought lost, and receives a kind entertainment from the queen. Dido, by a device of Venus, begins to have a passion for him, and, after some discourse with him, desires the history of his adventures since the siege of Troy, which is the subject of the two following books.

The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men?
She, for the fault of one offending foe,
The bolts of Jove himself presum'd to
throw:

With whirlwinds from beneath she toss'd the ship,

And bare expos'd the bosom of the deep; Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game, The wretch, yet hissing with her father's flame,

She strongly seiz'd, and with a burning wound

Transfix'd, and naked, on a rock she bound.
But I, who walk in awful state above,
The majesty of heav'n, the sister wife of

Jove,

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