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PREFACE.

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T is hard for a man to speak of himself with lerable fatisfaction or fuccefs: he can be more pleafed in blaming himself, than in reading a fatire made on him by another and though he may juftly defire that a friend should praise him; yet, if he makes his own panegyrick, he will get very few to read it. It is harder for him to speak of his own writings. An author is in the condition of a culprit: the publick are his judges by allowing too much, and condefcending too far, he may injure his own caufe, and become a kind of felo de fe; and, by pleading and afferting too boldly, he may displease the court that fits upon him his apology may only heighten his accufation. I would avoid these extremes: and though, I grant, it would not be very civil to trouble the reader with a long preface, before he enters upon an indifferent poem; I would fay fomething to perfuade him to take it as it is, or to excufe it for not being better.

The noble images and reflections, the profound reafonings upon human actions, and excellent precepts for the government of life, which are found in the Proverbs, Ecclefiaftes, and other books commonly attributed to Solomon, afford fubjects for finer poems in every kind,

than

than have, I think, as yet appeared in the Greek, Latin, or any modern language: how far they were verse in their original is a dissertation not to be entered into at prefent.

Out of this great treasure, which lies heaped up together in a confused magnificence, above all order, I had a mind to collect and digeft fuch obfervations and apophthegms, as most particularly tend to the proof of that great affertion, laid down in the beginning of the Ecclefiaftes, ALL IS VANITY.

Upon the fubject thus chofen, fuch various images prefent themselves to a writer's mind, that he must find it easier to judge what should be rejected, than what ought to be received. The difficulty lies in drawing and difpofing; or (as the painters term it) in grouping fuch a multitude of different objects, preferving ftill the juftice and conformity of ftyle and colouring, the "fimplex duntaxat & unum," which Horace prescribes, as requifite to make the whole picture beautiful and perfect.

As precept, however true in theory, or ufeful in practice, would be but dry and tedious in verfe, efpecially if the recital be long; I found it neceffary to form fome ftory, and give a kind of body to the poem. Under what fpecies it may be comprehended, whether Didafcalic or Heroic, I leave to the judgement of the critics; defiring them to be favourable in their cenfure; and not folicitous what the poem is called, provided it may be accepted.

The

The chief perfonage, or character, in the Epic is always proportioned to the design of the work, to carry on the narration and the moral. Homer intended to fhew us, in his Iliad, that diffentions amongst great men obstruct the execution of the nobleft enterprizes, and tend to the ruin of a state or kingdom. His Achilles therefore is haughty and paffionate, impatient of any restraint by laws, and arrogant in arms. In his Odyffes, the fame Poet endeavours to explain, that the hardest difficulties may be overcome by labour, and our fortune reftored after the fevereft afflictions. Ulyffes therefore is valiant, virtuous, and patient. Virgil's defign was to tell us, how, from a small colony established by the Trojans in Italy, the Roman empire rofe; and from what ancient families Auguftus (who was his prince and patron) defcended. His hero therefore was to fight his way to the throne, ftill distinguished and protected by the favour of the gods. The Poet to this end takes off from the vices of Achilles, and adds to the virtues of Ulyffes; from both perfecting a character proper for his work in the perfon of Ænas.

As Virgil copied after Homer, other Epic Poets have copied after them both. Taffo's Gierufalemme. Liberata is directly Troy Town Sacked; with this difference only, that the two chief characters in Homer, which the Latin Poet had joined in one, the Italian has feparated in his Godfrey and Rinaldo: but he makes them both carry on his work with very great fuccefs. Ronfard's Franciade (incomparably good as far as it goes) is again Virgil's neis. His Hero

comes

comes from a foreign country, fettles a colony, and lays the foundation of a future empire. I inftance in thefe, as the greatest Italian and French Poets in the Epic. In our language, Spenfer has not contented himself with this fubmiffive manner of imitation: he launches out into very flowery paths, which still seem to conduct him into one great road. His Fairy Queen (had it been finished) must have ended in the account which every Knight was to give of his adventures, and in the accumulated praises of his heroine Gloriana. The whole would have been an Heroic Poem, but in another caft and figure than any that ever had been written before. Yet it is obfervable, that every Hero (as far as we can judge by the books ftill remaining) bears his diftinguished character, and reprefents fome particular virtue conducive to the whole design.

To bring this to our prefent fubject. The pleasures of life do not compenfate the miseries: age fteals upon us unawares; and death, as the only cure of our ills, ought to be expected, but not feared. This inftruction is to be illuftrated by the action of fome great person. Who therefore more proper for the business, than Solomon himself? And why may he not be fuppofed now to repeat what, we take it for granted, he acted almost three thousand years fince? If, in the fair fituation where this prince was placed, he was acquainted with forrow; if, endowed with the greatest perfections of nature, and poffeffed of all the advantages of external condition, he could not find happinefs; the rest of mankind may fafely take the monarch's word for the

truth

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