I not addressed to a poet, and a critick of the first magnitude, I had myself been taxed for want of judgment, and shamed my patron for want of understanding. But neither will you, my Lord, so soon be tired 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 wished more earnestly by any man, than by Your Lordship's most humble, Most obliged, and most obedient servant, JOHN DRYDEN. 2 i. e. addressed to the learned. A Latin sermon preached before the Clergy assembled in Convocation, or in the Universities for degrees in divinity, is entitled Concio ad Clerum. POSTSCRIPT. WHAT Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age, in plenty and at ease,* I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; struggling with wants, oppressed by sickness, curbed in my genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write; and my judges, if they are not very equitable, already prejudiced against me by the lying character which has been given them of my morals. Yet steady to my principles, and not dispirited with my afflictions, I have, by the blessing of GOD on my endeavours, overcome all difficulties; and, in some measure, acquitted myself of the debt which I owed the publick, when I undertook this work. In the first place, therefore, I thankfully acknowledge to the Almighty Power the assistance he has given me in the beginning, the prosecution, and conclusion of my present studies, which are more happily performed than I could have promised to myself, when I laboured under such discouragements. For what I have done, imperfect as it is, for want of health and leisure to correct it, will be judged in afterages, and possibly in the present, to be no dis * Virgil died possessed of upward of eighty thousand pounds, sterling, Sept. 22d, A. U. C. 735, in the fifty-first year of his age; leaving his great work, to which he had devoted eleven years, unfinished. honour to my native country; whose language and poetry would be more esteemed abroad, if they were better understood. Somewhat (give me leave to say) I have added to both of them, in the choice of words, and harmony of numbers, which were wanting, especially the last, in all our poets; even in those, who being endued with genius, yet have not cultivated their mother-tongue with sufficient care or relying on the beauty of their thoughts, have judged the ornament of words and sweetness of sound unnecessary. One is for raking in Chaucer (our English Ennius) for antiquated words, which are never to be revived but when sound or significancy is wanting in the present language. But many of his deserve not this redemption, any more than the crowds of men who daily die, or are slain for sixpence in a battle, merit to be restored to life, if a wish could revive them. Others have no car for verse, nor choice of words, nor distinction of thoughts; but mingle farthings with their gold, to make up the sum. Here is a field of satire opened to me; but since the Revolution, I have wholly renounced that talent. For who would give physick to the great, when he is uncalled; to do his patient no good, and endanger himself for his prescription? Neither am I ignorant but I may justly be condemned for many of those faults, of which I have too liberally arraigned others : Cynthius aurem Vellit, et admonuit. It is enough for me, if the government will let me pass unquestioned. In the mean time I am obliged in gratitude to return my thanks to many of them, who have not only distinguished me from others of the same party, by a particular exception of grace, but without considering the man, have been bountiful to the poet; have encouraged Virgil to speak such English as I could teach him, and rewarded his interpreter for the pains he has taken in bringing him over into Britain, by defraying the charges of his voyage. Even Cerberus, when he had received the sop, permitted Æneas to pass freely to Elysium. Had it been offered me, and I had refused it, yet still some gratitude is due to such who were willing to oblige me. But how much more to those from whom I have received the favours which they have offered to one of a different persuasion; amongst whom I cannot omit naming the Earls of Derby and of Peterborough. To the first of these I have not the honour to be known; and therefore his liberality [was] as much unexpected as it was undeserved. The present Earl of Peterborough' has been pleased long since to accept the tenders of my service his favours are so frequent to me, that I 3 Many persons of this description appear among the Subscribers to the translation of Virgil. ♦ William, ninth Earl of Derby, who succeeded to the title in 1672, and died November 5, 1712. 5 Charles, the celebrated Earl of Peterborough (after. wards the friend of Pope,) who died at Lisbon in October 1735, aged seventy-seven. 6 receive them almost by prescription. No difference of interests or opinion have been able to withdraw his protection from me; and I might justly be condemned for the most unthankful of mankind, if I did not always preserve for him a most profound respect and inviolable gratitude. I must also add, that if the last Æneid shine amongst its fellows, it is owing to the commands of Sir William Trumbull, one of the principal 6 6 Sir William Trumbull was born in the year 1639, and was descended from that William Trumbull, who was Envoy to the Court of Brussels in the time of James the First. Sir William was originally of St. John's College, in Oxford, but afterwards was elected a fellow of All Souls. In October 1659, he was admitted Bachelor, and in July 1667, Doctor, of the Civil Law. He afterwards became an Advocate in Doctors' Commons, was made Judge of the Admiralty Court, Master of the Faculties, and Clerk of the Signet. In Nov. 1684, he was knighted, and in the following year was sent Ambassador Extraordinary to France. King James the Second, in 1687, sent him Ambassador to Constantinople, to which city, Mr. Ruff head informs us, he went through the continent on foot. In May 1694, he was appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury, from which office, after holding it about eighteen months, he was in 1695 removed to that of Secretary of State, and appointed a Privy Counsellor ; and in the same year he was chosen to represent the University of Oxford in Parliament. Two years afterwards (1697) he resigned all his employments, and retired to East Hampstead, in Berkshire, where he died in Dec. 1716. Here it was that, in 1705, he became acquainted with Pope, who then lived at Binfield. This amiable old |