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Preface to the first edition of Mr. Waller's Poems, after the refloration, printed in the year 664.

WH

HEN the Author of these verses (written only to please himself, and fuch particular persons to whom they were directed) returned from abroad fome years fince, he was troubled to find his name, in print, but fomewhat fatisfied to fee his lines fo ill rendered that he might justly difown them, and say to a mistaking printer as one did to an ill reciter,

*

-Male dum recitas, incipit esse tuus.

Having been ever fince preffed to correct the many and grofs faults, (fuch as ufe to be in impreffions wholly neglected by the authors) his anfwer was, that he made these when ill verses had more favour, and escaped better, than good ones do in this age; the feverity whereof he thought not unhappily diverted, by thofe faults in the impreffion which hitherto have hung upon his book, as the Turks hang old rags, or fuch like ugly things, upon their faireft horfes, and other goodly creatures. to fecure them against fascination. And for those of a more confined understanding, who pretend not to cenfure, as they admire most what they leaft comprehend, fo his verses (maimed to that degree that himself fcarce knew what to make of many of them) might, that way at least have a title to fome admiration; which is no fmall matter, if what *Martial, lib. i. ep. 39.

an old author observes be true, that the aim of orators is victory, of historians truth, and of poets admiration. He had reason therefore to indulge those faults in his book, whereby it might be reconciled to fome, and commended to others.

The printer alfo, he thought, would fare the worse if those faults were amended; for we fee maimed ftatues fell better than whole ones; and clipped and washed money goes about, when the entire and weighty lies hoarded up.

These are the reafons which, for above twelve years paft, he has oppofed to our requeft; to which it was replied, that as it would be too late to recall that which had fo long been made publick, fo might it find excufe from his youth, the feafon it was produced in and for what had been done fince, and now added, if it commend not his poetry, it might his philofophy, which teaches him fo cheerfully to bear fo great a calamity as the lofs of the best part of his fortune, torn from him in prifon, (in which, and in banishment, the best portion of his life hath also been spent) that he can ftill fing under the burden, not unlike that Roman*,

-Quem demifere Philippi

Decifis humilem pennis, inopemque paterni
Et laris et fundi.

Whofe fpreading wings the Civil war had clipp'd,

And him of his old patrimony ftripp'd.

*Horace, lib. ii, ep. 2.

Who yet not long after could say,

Mufis amicus, triftitiam et metus

Tradam protervis in mare Creticum
Portare ventis.

They that acquainted with the Mufes be,
Send care and forrow by the winds to fea.

Lib. i. ode 26.

Not fo much moved with these reasons of ours, (or pleased with our rhymes) as wearied with our impor tunity, he has at last given us leave to affure the reader that the Poems which have been fo long and fo ill fet forth under his name, are here to be found as he first writ them; as also to add fome others which have fince been composed by him: and though his advice to the contrary might have difcouraged us, yet obferving how often they have been reprinted, what price they have borne, and how earnestly they have been always inquired after, but especially of late, (making good that of Horace,

Meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit.

Lib. ii. ep. I.

"fome verses being, like fome wines, recommended 66 to our tafte by time and age") we have adventured upon this new and well-corrected edition, which, for our own fakes as well as thine, we hope will fucceed better than he apprehended.

Vivitur ingenio, cætera mortis erunt.

ALBINOVANUS,

Preface to the Second Part of Mr. Waller's Poems, prinied in the year 1690.

THE reader needs be told no more in commendation of these Poems, than that they are Mr. Waller's, a name that carries everything in it that is either great or graceful in poetry. He was indeed the parent of English verfe, and the first that shewed us our tongue had beauty and numbers in it. Our language owes more to him than the French does to Cardinál Richelieu and the whole Academy. A poet cannot think of him without being in the fame rapture Lucretius is in when Epicurus comes in his way.

Tu pater, et rerum inventor; tu patria nobis.
Suppeditas præcepta: tuifque ex, Inclute! chartis,
Floriferis ut apes in faltibus omnia libant,
Omnia nos itidem depafcimur aurea dicta;
Aurea! perpetua femper digniffima vita!

Lib. iii. ver. 9.

The tongue came into his hands like a rough diamond he polished it first, and to that degree. that all artists fince him have admired the workmanship, without pretending to mend it Suckling and Carew, I must confefs, wrote fome few things fmoothly enough; but as all they did in this kind was not very confiderable, fo it was a little later than the earliest pieces of Mr Waller. He undoubtedly stands first in the lift of refiners, and, for ought I know, last too for I question whether in Charles II.'s reign English did not come to its full perfection, and whether it has

not had its 4uguftan age as well as the Latin. It feems to be already mixed with foreign languages as far as its purity will bear; and, as chymists say of their menftruums, to be quite fated with the infufion. But pofterity will beft judge of this. In the mean→ time, it is a furprifing reflection, that between what Spenfer wrote laft, and Waller firit, there fhould not be much above twenty years diflance; and yet the one's language, like the money of that time, is as current now as ever; whilft the other's words are like old coins, one must go to an antiquary to underftand their true meaning and value. Such advances may a great genius make when it undertakes any thing in earneft.

Some painters will hit the chief lines and mafterftrokes of a face fo truly, that thro' all the differences of age the picture fhall still bear a resemblance. This art was Mr. Waller's: he fought out, in this flowing tongue of ours, what parts would laft, and be of flanding ufe and ornament; and this he did fo fuccessfully, that his language is now as fresh as it was at first fetting out. Were we to judge barely by the wording, we could not know what was wrote at twenty, and what at fourfcore. He complains, indeed, of a tide of words that comes in upon the English poet, 'and overflows whatever he builds; but this was less his cafe than any man's that ever wrote; and the mischief of it is, this very complaint will last long

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