A collection of poems by several hands; most of them written by persons of eminent quality.
About this Item
- Title
- A collection of poems by several hands; most of them written by persons of eminent quality.
- Publication
- London :: Printed by T. Warren, for Francis Saunders ...,
- 1693.
- Rights/Permissions
-
To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
- Link to this Item
-
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A33848.0001.001
- Cite this Item
-
"A collection of poems by several hands; most of them written by persons of eminent quality." In the digital collection Early English Books Online 2. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A33848.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 1, 2025.
Pages
Page [unnumbered]
THE PREFACE TO THE ART Of POETRY.
I Have seldom known a Trick succeed, and will put none upon the Reader; But tell him plainly that I think it could never be more seasonable than now to lay down such Rules, as if they be observ'd, will make Men write more Correctly, and judge more discreetly; But Horace must be read seriously or not at all, for else the Reader wo'n't be the better for him, and I shall have lost my labour. I have kept as close as I could, both to the Meaniug, and the words of the Author, and done nothing but what I believe he would forgive if he were alive; And I have often ask'd my self that Question. I know this is a Field
Page [unnumbered]
Per quem Magnus Equos Arunci flexit Alumnus.But with all the respect due to the name of Ben. Johnson, to which no Man pays more Veneration than I; it cannot be deny'd, that the constraint of Rhyme, and a literal Tran∣slation (to which Horace in this Book de∣clares himself an Enemy) has made him want a Comment in many places.
My chief care has been to Write intelligi∣bly, and where the Latin was obscure, I have added a Line or two to explain it.
I am below the Envy of the Criticks, but if I durst, I would beg them to remember, that Horace ow'd his Favour and his Fortune to the Character given of him by Virgil and Varius, that Fundanius and Pollio are still valued by what Horace says of them, and that in their Golden Age, there was a good Ʋnderstanding among the Ingenious, and those who were the most Esteem'd were the best Natur'd.
Roscommon.