TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

HUGH LORD CLIFFORD,

BARON OF CHUDLEIGH

MY LORD,

HAVE found it not more difficult to tranflate Vir

gil, than to find fuch Patrons as I defire for my tranflation. For though England is not wanting in a learned nobility, yet fuch are my unhappy circumftances, that they have confined me to a narrow choice. To the greater part, I have not the honour to be known; and to fome of them I cannot fhew at prefent, by any public act, that grateful refpect which I fhall ever bear them in my heart. Yet I have no reafon to complain of fortune, fince in the midst of that abundance I could not poffibly have chosen better, than the worthy son of so illustrious a father. He was the patron of my manhood, when I flourished in the opinion of the world; though with small advantage to my fortune, till he awakened the remembrance of my royal master. He was that Pollio, or that Varus, who

introduced

introduced me to Augustus: and though he foon difmiffed himself from state-affairs, yet in the fhort time of his administration he shone fo powerfully upon me, that, like the heat of a Ruffian fummer, he ripened the fruits of poetry in a cold climate; and gave me wherewithal to fubfift at least, in the long winter which fucceeded. What I now offer to your lordship is the wretched remainder of a fickly age, worn out with study, and oppreffed by fortune: without other fupport than the conftancy and patience of a Chriftian. You, my lord, are yet in the flower of your youth, and may live to enjoy the benefits of the peace which is promised Europe. I can only hear of that blessing: for years, and, above all things, want of health, have shut me out from sharing in the happiness. The poets, who condemn their Tantalus to hell, had added to his torments, if they had placed him in Elyfium, which is the proper emblem of my condition. The fruit and the water may reach my lips, but cannot enter and if they could, yet I want a palate as well as a digestion. But it is fome kind of pleasure to me, to please those whom I refpect. And I am not altogether out of hope, that these Pastorals of Virgil may give your lordship fome delight, though made English by one, who fcarce remembers that paffion which inspired my author when he wrote them. These were his first essay in poetry, (if the Ceiras was not his :) and it was more excufable in him to defcribe love when he was young, then for me to tranflate him when I am old. He died at the age of fifty-two, and I begin this work

in my great climacteric. But having perhaps a better conftitution than my author, I have wronged him less, confidering my circumstances, than those who have attempted him before, either in our own, or any modern language. And though this verfion is not void of errors, yet it comforts me that the faults of others are not worth finding. Mine are neither grofs nor frequent, in those Eclogues, wherein my master has raised himself above that humble style in which Paftoral delights, and which I must confefs is proper to the education and converfe of Shepherds: for he found the ftrength of his genius betimes, and was even in his youth preluding to his Georgics, and his Æneis. He could not forbear to try his wings, though his pinions were not hardened to maintain a long laborious flight. Yet fometimes they bore him to a pitch as lofty, as ever he was able to reach afterwards. But when he was admonished by his fubject to descend, he came down gently circling in the air, and finging to the ground. Like a lark, melodious in her mounting, and continuing her song till she alights: ftill preparing for a higher flight at her next fally, and tuning her voice to better mufic. The fourth, the fixth, and the eighth Paftorals, are clear evidences of this truth. In the three first he contains himself within his bounds; but addreffing to Pollio, his great Patron, and himself no vulgar Poet, he no longer could restrain the freedom of his fpirit, but began to affert his native character, which is fublimity. Putting himself under the conduct of the fame Cuman Sibyl, whom afterwards he

gave for a guide to his Æneas. It is true he was fenfible of his own boldnefs; and we know it by the Paulo Majora, which begins his fourth Eclogue. He remembered, like young Manlius, that he was forbidden to engage; but what avails an exprefs command to a youthful courage which prefages victory in the attempt? Encouraged with fuccefs, he proceeds farther in the fixth, and invades the province of Philofophy. And notwithstanding that Phoebus had forewarned him of finging wars, as he there confesses, yet he prefumed that the fearch of nature was as free to him as to Lucretius, who at his age explained it according to the principles of Epicurus. In his eighth Eclogue, he has innovated nothing; the former part of it being the complaint and despair of a forfaken lover: the latter a charm of an enchantress, to renew a loft affection. But the complaint perhaps contains fome topics which are above the condition of his perfons; and our author feems to have made his herdfmen fomewhat too learned for their profeffion: the charms are alfo of the fame nature; but both were copied from Theocritus, and had received the applaufe of former ages in their original. There is a kind of rufticity in all thofe pompous verses; fomewhat of a holiday fhepherd ftrutting in his country bufkins. The like may be obferved, both in the Pollio, and the Silenus; where the fimilitudes are drawn from the woods and meadows. They feem to me to reprefent our poet betwixt a farmer and a courtier, when he left Mantua for Rome, and dreffed himself in his best habit to appear before his Patron:

In

Patron fomewhat too fine for the place from whence he came, and yet retaining part of its fimplicity. In the ninth Paftoral he collects fome beautiful paffages, which were fcattered in Theocritus, which he could not infert into any of his former Eclogues, and yet was unwilling they fhould be loft. all the rest he is equal to his Sicilian master, and obferves like him a just decorum, both of the subject and the perfons. As particularly in the third Paftoral, where one of his fhepherds describes a bowl, or mazer, curiously carved.

"In medio duo figna: Conon, et quis fuit alter "Defcripfit radio totum qui gentibus orbem." He remembers only the name of Conon, and forgets the other on fet purpose (whether he means Aniximander or Eudoxus I difpute not); but he was certainly forgotten, to fhew his country fwain was no great fcholar.

After all, I must confess that the boorish dialect of Theocritus has a secret charm in it, which the Roman language cannot imitate, though Virgil has drawn it down as low as poffibly he could: as in the Cujum Pecus, and fome other words, for which he was fo unjustly blamed by the bad critics of his age, who could not fee the beauties of that Merum Rus, which the poet described in those expreffions. But Theocritus may juftly be preferred as the original, without injury to Virgil, who modeftly contents himself with the fecond place, and glories only in being the first who transplanted Pastoral into his own country; and VOL. V. brought

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