temper'd than the rest of his armor, which was all wrought by Vulcan and his journeymen? These difficulties are not easily to be solv'd, without confessing that Virgil had not life enough to correct his work; tho' he had review'd it, and found those errors which he resolv'd to mend: but, being prevented by death, and not willing to leave an imperfect work behind him, he ordain'd, by his last testament, that his Æneis should be burn'd. As for the death of Aruns, who was shot by a goddess, the machine was not altogether so outrageous as the wounding Mars and Venus by the sword of Diomede. Two divinities, one would have thought, might have pleaded their prerogative of impassibility, or at least not have been wounded by any mortal hand; beside that the exwp which they shed was so very like our common blood, that it was not to be distinguish'd from it, but only by the name and color. As for what Horace says in his Art of Poetry, that no machines are to be us'd, unless on some extraordinary occasion:

Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus

that rule is to be applied to the theater, of which he is then speaking; and means no more than this, that, when the knot of the play is to be untied, and no other way is left for making the discovery; then, and not otherwise, let a god descend upon a rope, and clear the business to the audience. But this has no relation to the machines which are us'd in an epic poem.

In the last place, for the Dira, or flying pest, which, flapping on the shield of Turnus, and fluttering about his head, dishearten'd him in the duel, and presag'd to him his approaching death, I might have plac'd it more properly amongst the objections; for the critics who lay want of courage to the charge of Virgil's hero quote this passage as a main proof of their assertion. They say our author had not only secur'd him before the duel, but also, in the beginning of it, had given him the advantage in impenetrable arms, and in his sword; for that of Turnus was not his own, which was forg'd by Vulcan for his father, but a weapon which he had snatch'd in haste, and by mistake, belonging to his charioteer Metiscus; that, after all this, Jupiter, who was partial to the

Trojan, and distrustful of the event, tho' he had hung the balance, and given it a jog of his hand to weigh down Turnus, thought convenient to give the Fates a collateral security, by sending the screech owl to discourage him: for which they quote these words of Virgil:

Non me tua turbida virtus

Terret, ait: dii me terrent, et Jupiter hostis.

In answer to which, I say that this machine is one of those which the poet uses only for ornament, and not out of necessity. Nothing can be more beautiful or more poetical than his description of the three Dine, or the setting of the balance which our Milton has borrow'd from him, but employ'd to a different end: for, first, he makes God Almighty set the scale for St. Gabriel and Satan, when he knew no combat was to follow; then he makes the good angel's scale descend, and the Devil's mount, quite contrary to Virgil, if I have translated the three verses according to my author's sense:

Jupiter ipse duas æquato examine lances
Sustinet; et fata imponit diversa duorum;

Quem damnet labor, et quo vergat pondere letum.

For I have taken these words, quem damnet labor, in the sense which Virgil gives them in another place—damnabis tu quoque votis-to signify a prosperous event. Yet I dare not condemn so great a genius as Milton: for I am much mistaken if he alludes not to the text in Daniel, where Belshazzar was put into the balance and found too light. This is digression; and I return to my subject. I said above that these two machines of the balance and the Dira were only ornamental, and that the success of the duel had been the same without them. For, when Eneas and Turnus stood fronting each other before the altar, Turnus look'd dejected, and his color faded in his face, as if he desponded of the victory before the fight; and not only he, but all his party, when the strength of the two champions was judg'd by the proportion of their limbs, concluded it was impar pugna, and that their chief was overmatch'd: whereupon Juturna (who was of the same opinion) took this opportunity to break the

treaty and renew the war. Juno herself had plainly told the nymph beforehand that her brother was to fight

Imparabus fatis, nec diis viribus æquis;

so that there was no need of an apparition to fright Turnus: he had the presage within himself of his impending destiny. The Dira only serv'd to confirm him in his first opinion, that it was his destiny to die in the ensuing combat; and in this sense are those words of Virgil to be taken:

-Non me tua turbida virtus

Terret, ait: dii me terrent, et Jupiter hostis.

I doubt not but the adverb solum is to be understood: ""Tis not your valor only that gives me this concernment; but I find also, by this portent, that Jupiter is my enemy." For Turnus fled before, when his first sword was broken, till his sister supplied him with a better; which indeed he could not use, because Æneas kept him at a distance with his spear. I wonder Ruæus saw not this, where he charges his author so unjustly, for giving Turnus a second sword to no purpose. How could he fasten a blow, or make a thrust, when he was not suffer'd to approach? Besides, the chief errand of the Dira was to warn Juturna from the field, for she could have brought the chariot again, when she saw her brother worsted in the duel. I might farther add, that Æneas was so eager of the fight that he left the city, now almost in his possession, to decide his quarrel with Turnus by the sword; whereas Turnus had manifestly declin'd the combat, and suffer'd his sister to convey him as far from the reach of his enemy as she could. I say, not only suffer'd her, but consented to it; for 't is plain he knew her, by these words:

O soror, et dudum agnovi, cum prima per artem
Fœdera turbasti, teque hæc in bella dedisti;

Et nunc nequicquam fallis dea.

I have dwelt so long on this subject, that I must contract what I have to say in reference to my translation, unless I would swell my preface into a volume, and make it formidable to your Lordship, when you see so many pages yet behind. And indeed what I have already written, either in

justification or praise of Virgil, is against myself, for presuming to copy, in my coarse English, the thoughts and beautiful expressions of this inimitable poet, who flourish'd in an age when his language was brought to its last perfection, for which it was particularly owing to him and Horace. I will give your Lordship my opinion, that those two friends had consulted each other's judgment, wherein they should endeavor to excel; and they seem to have pitch'd on propriety of thought, elegance of words, and harmony of numbers. According to this model, Horace writ his Odes and Epodes: for his Satires and Epistles, being intended wholly for instruction, requir'd another style:

Ornari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri

and therefore, as he himself professes, are sermoni propiora, nearer prose than verse. But Virgil, who never attempted the lyric verse, is everywhere elegant, sweet, and flowing in his hexameters. His words are not only chosen, but the places in which he ranks them for the sound; he who removes them from the station wherein their master sets them, spoils the harmony. What he says of the Sibyl's prophecies may be as properly applied to every word of his: they must be read in order as they lie; the least breath discomposes them; and somewhat of their divinity is lost. I cannot boast that I have been thus exact in my verses; but I have endeavor'd to follow the example of my master, and am the first Englishman, perhaps, who made it his design to copy him in his numbers, his choice of words, and his placing them for the sweetness of the sound. On this last consideration I have shunn'd the cœsura as much as possibly I could: for, wherever that is us'd, it gives a roughness to the verse; of which we can have little need in a language which is overstock'd with consonants. Such is not the Latin, where the vowels and consonants are mix'd in proportion to each other; yet Virgil judg'd the vowels to have somewhat of an overbalance, and therefore tempers their sweetness with caesuras. Such difference there is in tongues, that the same figure which roughens one, gives majesty to another; and that was it which Virgil studied in his verses. Ovid uses it but rarely; and hence it is that his versification cannot so properly be

call'd sweet, as luscious. The Italians are forc'd upon it once or twice in every line, because they have a redundancy of vowels in their language. Their metal is so soft that it will not coin without alloy to harden it. On the other side, for the reason already nam'd, 't is all we can do to give sufficient sweetness to our language: we must not only choose our words for elegance, but for sound; to perform which, a mastery in the language is requir'd; the poet must have a magazine of words, and have the art to manage his few vowels to the best advantage, that they may go the farther. He must also know the nature of the vowels-which are more sonorous, and which more soft and sweet-and so dispose them as his present occasions require: all which, and a thousand secrets of versification beside, he may learn from Virgil, if he will take him for his guide. If he be above Virgil, and is resolv'd to follow his own verve, (as the French call it,) the proverb will fall heavily upon him: "Who teaches himself, has a fool for his master."

Virgil employ'd eleven years upon his Eneis; yet he left it, as he thought himself, imperfect. Which when I seriously consider, I wish that, instead of three years, which I have spent in the translation of his works, I had four years more allow'd me to correct my errors, that I might make my version somewhat more tolerable than it is: for a poet cannot have too great a reverence for his readers, if he expects his labors should survive him. Yet I will neither plead my age nor sickness, in excuse of the faults which I have made: that I wanted time, is all I have to say; for some of my subscribers grew so clamorous that I could no longer defer the publication. I hope, from the candor of your Lordship, and your often experienc'd goodness to me, that, if the faults are not too many, you will make allowances with Horace:

Si plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis
Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit,
Aut humana parum cavit natura.

You may please also to observe, that there is not, to the best of my remembrance, one vowel gaping on another for want of a caesura, in this whole poem; but, where a vowel ends a word, the next begins either with a consonant,