A DISCOURSE UPON GONDIBERT. An heroic POEM Written by Sr. WILLIAM D'AVENANT With an Answer to it by Mr. HOBBS. A PARIS, Chez MATTHIEV GVILLEMOT, ruë saint Jaques au coin de la ruë de la parcheminery, à l'Enseigne de la Bibliotheque, M.DC.L. To Sir WILLIAM D'AVENANT, upon his two first Books of GONDIBERT, finished before his Voyage to America. THus the wise Nightingale that leave● her home, Her native wood, when storms and winter come, Pursuing constantly the cheerful Spring To foreign Groves does her eid music bring: The drooping Hebrews banished Harps unstrung At Babylon, upon the willows hung; Yours sounds aloud, and tell's us you excel No less in courage then in singing well: Whilst unconcerned you let your country know, They have impoverished themselves, not you: Who with the muse's help can mock those fates Which t●reaten Kingdoms, & disorder States. So Ovid, when from Cesar's rage he fled, The Roman Muse to Pontus with him led: Where he so sung, that we through Pity's glass See Nero milder than Augustus was. Hereafter such in thy behalf shall be Th' indulgent censure of Posterity. To banish those who with such art can sing, Is a rude crime which its own curse does bring Ages to come shall ne'er know how they fought Nor how to love their present youth be taught. This to thyself. Now to thy matchless Book, Wherein those few that can with judgement look May find old Love in pure fresh language told, Like new stamped coin made out of Angel gold. Such truth in Love as th'antick world did know In such a style as Courts may boast of now. Which no bold tales of Gods or Monsters swell But human passions, such as with us dwell. Man is thy theme, his Virtue or his Rage Drawn to the life in each elaborate Page. Mars nor B●llona are not named here; But such a Gondibert as both might fear. Venus had here and Hebe been out-shined By thy bright B●r●h●, and thy Rhodalind. Such is thy happy skill, and such thy odds Betwixt thy Worthies & the Grecian Gods. Whose Deities in vain had here come down, Where mortal beauty wears the sovereign Crown: Such as of flesh composed, by flesh and blood (Though not resisted) may be understood, ED. WALLER. To Sir WILLIAM D'AVENANT, upon his two first Books of GONDIBERT, finished before his Voyage to America. MEthinks heroic poesy, till now Like some fantastic Fairy land did show; Gods, Devils, Nymphs, Witches, & giant's race, And all but man, in man's best work had place. Thou like some worthy Knight, with sacred Arms Dost drive the Monsters thence, and end the Charms: Instead of those dost Men and manners plant, The things which that rich soil did chiefly want. But even thy Mortals do their Gods excel, Taught by thy Muse to Fight & Love so well. By fatal hands whilst present Empires fall, Thine from the grave past Monarchies recall. So much more thanks from human kind does merit The poet's Fury, than the zealots Spirit. And from the grave thou mak'st this Empire rise Not like some dreadful ghost t'affright our eyes; But with more beauty and triumphant state Then when it crowned at proud Verona sat. So will our God rebuild mens' perished frame, And raise him up much better, yet the same: So godlike Poets do past things rehearse Not change, but heighten Nature with their Verse. With shame methinks great Italy must s●e Her conquerors called to life again by thee: Called by such powerful Arts that ancient Rome May blush no less to see her Wit o'ercome. Some men their Fancies like their Faiths derive, And count all ill but that which Rome does give: The marks of Old, and Catholic would find; To the same Chair would Truth and Fiction bind. Thou in these beaten paths disdainest to tread, And scornest to Live by robbing of the Dead. Since Time does all things change, thou think'st not fit This latter age should see all new, but Wit. Thy Fancy, like a Flame, her way does make, And leaves bright tracks for following Pens to take. Sure 'twas this noble boldness of the Muse Did thy desire to seek new Worlds infuse: And ne'er did heaven so much a Voyage bless If thou canst plant but there with like success AB. COWLEY. The Author's Preface to his much honoured friend Mr. HOBBS. SIR, SInce you have done me the honour to allow this Poem a daily examination as it was writing, I will presume, now it hath attained more length, to give you a longer trouble; that you may yield me as great advantages by censuring the Method, as by judging the Numbers in the matter. And because you shall pass through this new Building with more ease to your disquisition, I will acquaint you, what care I took of my materials ere I began to work. But first give me leave (Remembering with what difficulty the world can show any heroic Poem, that in a perfect glass of Nature gives us a familiar and easy view 〈◊〉 ourselves) to take notice of those quarrels, which the Living have with the Dead: and I will (according as all times have applied their reverence) begin with Homer, who though he seems to me standing upon the Poets famous hill, like the eminent Sea-mark, by which they have in former ages steered; and thought he ought not to be removed from that eminence, lest Posterity should presumptuously mistake their course; yet some (sharply observing how his successors have proceeded no farther than a perfection of imitating him) say, that as Sea-marks are chiefly useful to Coasters, and serve not those who have the ambition of Discoverers, that love to sail in untried Seas; so he hath rather proved a Guide for those, whose satisfied wit will not venture beyond the tract of others, then to them, who affect a new and remote way of thinking; who esteem it a deficiency and meanness of mind, to stay and depend upon the authority of example. Some there are, that object that even in the likelihoods of Story (and Story, where ever it seems most likely, grows most pleasant) he doth too frequently intermix such Fables, as are objects lifted above the Eyes of Nature; and as he often interrogates his Muse, not as his ●ationall Spirit but as a Familiar, separated from his body, so her replies bring him where he spends time in immortal conversation; whilst supernaturally he doth often advance his men to the quality of Gods, and depose his Gods to the condition of men. His successor to fame, (and consequently to censure) is Virgil; whose toils nor Virtue canno● free him from the peevishness (or rather curiosity) of divers Readers. He is upbraided by some (who perhaps are affected Antiquaries, and make priority of time the measure of excellence) for gaining his renown by imitation of Homer: Whilst others (no less bold with that ancient Guide) say, he hath so often led him into Heaven, and Hell, till by conversation with Gods and Ghosts, he sometimes deprives us of those natural probabilities in Story, which are instructive to human life: And others a●firm (if it be not irreverence to record their opinion) that even in wit, he seems deficient by many omissions; as if he had designed a penance of gravity to himself and to posterity: And by their observing that continued gravity, methinks they look upon him, as on a Musician composing of anthems; whose excellence consists more in the solemness, then in the fancy; and upon the body of his Work as on the body of a Giant, whose force hath more of strength, than quickness; and of patience, than activity. But these bold Censurers are in danger of so many Enemies, as I shall wisely shrink from them; and only observe, that if any Disciples of unimitable Virgil can prove so formal, as to esteem wit (as if it were levity) an imputation to the heroic Muse (by which malevolent word, Wit, they would disgrace her extraordinary heights) yet if those grave Judges will be held wise, they must endure the sat of Wise-men; who always have but few of their Society; for many more than consist of their number (perhaps not having the sullenness to be of it) are taken with those bold flights, and think 'tis with the Muse (whose noble Quarry is men) as with the Eagle, who when he soars high stoops more prosperously, and is most certain of his prey. And surely Poets (whose business should represent the world's true image often to our view) are not less prudent than Painters, who when they draw Landschaps, entertain not the Eye wholly with even Prospect, and a continued Flat; but (for variety) terminate the sight with lofty hills, whose obscure heads are sometimes in the Clouds. Lucan who chose to write the greatest actions that ever were allowed to be true (which, for fear of contemporary witnesses, obliged him to a very close attendance upon Fame) did not observe that such an enterprise rather beseemed an Historian than a Poet: for wise Poets think it more worthy to seek out truth in the passions, then to record the truth of actions; and practise to describe Mankind just as we are persuaded or guided by instinct, not particular persons, as they are lifted, or leveled by the force of Fate, it being nobler to contemplate the general History of Nature, than a selected Diary of Fortune: And Painters are no more than Historians, when they draw eminent persons (though they term that drawing to the life) but when, by assembling divers figures in a larger volume, they draw passions (though they term it but Story) than they increase in dignity and become Poets. I have been thus hardy to call him to account for the choice of his Argument, not merely as it was Story, but because the actions he recorded were so eminent, and so near his time, that he could not assist Truth, with such ornaments as Poets, for useful pleasure, have allowed her; lest the feigned complexion might render the true, suspected. And now I will leave to others the presumption of measuring his Hyperboles, by whose space and height they maliciously take the dimension of wit; and so mistake him in his boiling Youth (which had mervellous forces) as we disrellish excellent Wine when fuming in the Lee. Statius (with whom we may conclude the old heroics) is as accountable to some for his obligations to Virgil, as Virgil is to others for what he owes to Homer; and more closely than Virgil wa●ts on Homer, doth Statius attend Virgil, and follows him there also where Nature never comes, even into Heaven, and Hell: and therefore he cannot escape such as approve the wisdom of the best dramatics; who in representation of examples, believe they prevail most on our manners when they lay the Scene at home in their own country, so much they avoid those remote regions of Heaven and Hell: as if the People (whom they make civil by an easy communication with reason (and familiar reason is that which is called the civility of the Stage) were become more discreet then to have their eyes persuaded by the descending of Gods in gay Clouds, and more manly then to be frighted with the rising of Ghosts in smoke. Tasso (who revived the heroic flame after it was many ages quenched) is held both in time and merit, the first of the Moderns; an honour by which he gains not much; because the number he excels must needs be few, which affords but one fit to succeed him; for I will yield to their opinion, who permit not Ariosto, no nor Du Bartas, in this eminent rank of the heroics; rather than to make way by their admission for Dante, Marino and others. Tasso's honour too is chiefly allowed him, where he most endeavours to make Virgil his Pattern: And again, when we consider from whom Virgil's spirit is derived, we may observe how rarely human excellence is found; for heroic poesy (which, if exact in itself, yields not to any other human Work) flowed but in few, and even those Streams descended but from one Grecian Spring: And 'tis with original Poems as with the original Pieces of Painters, whose copies abate the excessive price of the first Hand. But Tasso though he came late into the world must have his share in that critical war which never ceases amongst the Learned; and he seems most unfortunate, because his errors which are derived from the ancients, when examined, grow in a great degree excusable in them, and by being his, admit no pardon. Such as are his council assembled in Heaven▪ his Witches Expeditions through the Air, and enchanted Woods inhabited with Ghosts. For though the elder Poets (which were then the sacred Priests) fed the World with supernatural Tales, and so compounded the Religion, of Pleasure and Mystery (two Ingredients which never failed to wo●k upon the People) whilst for the eternity of their Chiefs (more refined by education) they surely intended no such vain provision) Yet a Christian Poet (whose Religion little needs the aids of invention) hath less occasion to imitate such Fables, as meanly illustrate a probable Heaven, by the fashion, and dignity of Courts; and make a resemblance of Hell, out of the Dreams of frighted Women; by which they continue and increase the Melancholy mistakes of the People. Spencer may stand here as the last of this short File of heroic Poets; Men, whose intellectuals were of so great a making, (though some have thought them liable to those few censures we have mentioned) as perhaps they will in worthy memory outlast even Makers of Laws, and Founders of Empire, and all but such as must therefore live equally with them, because they have recorded their Names; and consequently with their own hands led them to the Temple of Fame. And since we have dared to remember those exceptions which the Curious have against them; it will not be expected I should forget what is objected against Spencer; whose obsolete language we are constrained to mention, though it be grown the most vulgar accusation that is laid to his charge. Language (which is the only Creature of Man's Creation) hath, like a Plant, seasons of flourishing, and decay; like Plants, is removed from one Soil to another, and by being so transplanted, doth often gather vigour and increase. But as it is false Husbandry to graft old Branch●s upon young Stocks: so we may wonder that our Language (not long before his time created out of a confusion of others, and then beginning to flourish like a new Plant) should (as helps to its increase) receive from his hand new Grafts of old withered Words. But this vulgar exception shall only have the vulgar excuse; which is, that the unlucky choice of his Stanza hath by repetition of rhyme brought him to the necessity of many exploded words. If we proceed from his Language to his Argument, we must observe with others, that his noble and most artful hands deserved to be employed upon matter of a more natural, and therefore of a more useful kind. His allegorical Story (by many held defective in the Connexion) resembling (Methinks) a continuance of extraordinary Dreams; such as excellent Poets, and Painters, by being overstudious, may have in the beginning of fevers: And those moral visions are just of so much use to human application, as painted History, when with the cozenage of lights it is represented in Scenes, by which we are much less informed then by actions on the Stage. Thus, Sir, I have (perhaps) taken pains to make you think me malicious, in observing how far the Curious have looked into the errors of others: errors, which the natural humour of imitation hath made so like in all (even from Homer to Spencer) as the accusations against the first, appear but little more than repetition in every process against the rest: and comparing the resemblance of error in persons of one generation to that which is in those of another age, we may find it exceeds not anywhere, notoriously, the ordinary proportion. Such limits to the progress of every thing (even of worthiness as well as defect) doth Imitation give: for whilst we imitate others, we can no more excel them, than he that sails by others Maps can make a new discovery: and to Imitation, Nature (which is the only visible power and operation of God) perhaps doth needfully incline us to keep us from excesses. For, though every man be capable of worthiness and unworthiness (as they are defined by Opinion) yet no man is built strong enough to bear the extremities of either, without unloading himself upon others shoulders, even to the weariness of many. If courage be worthiness, yet where it is overgrown into extremes, it becomes as wild and hurtful as Ambition; and so what was reverenced for Protection grows to be abhorred for Oppression. If Learning (which is not Knowledge, but a continued Sailing by fantastic and uncertain winds towards it) be worthiness, yet it hath bounds in all Philosophers; and Nature that measured those bounds, seems not so partial, as to allow it in any one a much larger extent then in another; as if in our fleshy building, she considered the furniture and the room, alike, and together: for as the compass of Diadems commonly fits the whole succession of those Kings that wear them; so throughout the whole World, a very few inches may distinguish the circumference of the head● of their Subjects: Nor need we repine that Nature hath not some Favourites, to whom she doth dispense this Treasure, Knowledge, with a prodigious Liberality. For as there is n● one that can be said vastly to exce●● all mankind; so divers that have i● learning transcended all in some one Province, have corrupted many wit● that great quantity of false gold; and the authority of their stronger Science hath often served to distract or perver● their weaker disciples. And as the qualities which are termed good, are bounded, so are the bad; and likewise limited, as well as gotten by imitation; for amongst those that are extraordinary, eithe● by Birth or Brain (for with the usual pride of Poets, I pass by common crowds, as negligently as Princes move from throngs that are not thei● own Subjects) we cannot find any one so egregious (admitting cruelty and avarice for the chiefest evils; and errors in government or doctrine, to be the greatest errors) but that divers of former or succeeding times may enter the scales with them, and make the balance even; though the passion of Historians would impose the contrary on our belief; who in dispraise of evil Princes are often as unjust and excessive as the common People: for there was never any Monarch so cruel, but he had living subjects; nor so avaricious, but that his subjects were richer than himself; nor ever any disease in government so extremely infectious, as to make an universal Anarchy; or any error in Doctrine so strong by the maintainer, but that Truth (though it wrestled with her often and in many places) hath at some season, and on some ground, made her advantages and success apparent: Therefore we may conclude, that Nature, for the safety of mankind, hath as well (by dulling and stopping our progress with the constant humour of imitation) given limits to courage and learning, to wickedness and to error, as it hath ordained the shelves before the shore, to restrain the rage and excesses of the Sea. But I feel (Sir) that I am falling into the dangerous Fit of a hot Writer; for, instead of performing the promise which begins this Preface, and doth oblige me (after I had given you the judgement of some upon others) to present myself to your censure; I am wandering after new thoughts: but I shall ask your pardon, and return to my undertaking. My Argument I resolved should consist of Christian persons; for since Religion doth generally beget and govern manners, I thought the example of their actions would prevail most upon our own, by being derived from the same Doctrine and Authority; as the particular Sects educated by Philosophers were diligent and pliant to the dictates and fashions of such as derived themselves from the same Master; but lazy and froward to those who conversed in other Schools. Yet all these Sects pretended to the same beauty, Virtue; though each did court her more fondly, when she was dressed at their own homes by the hands of their acquaintance: And so Subjects bred under the laws of a Prince (though Laws differ not much in Morality or privilege throughout the civil World, being everywhere made for direction of Life, more than for sentences of Death) will rather die near that Prince, defending those they have been taught, then live by taking new from another. These were partly the reasons why I chose a Story of such Persons as professed Christian Religion; but I ought to have been most inclined to it, because the Principles of our Religion conduce more to explicable Virtue, to plain demonstrative Justice, and even to Honour (if Virtue the Mother of Honour be voluntary and active in the dark, so as she need not laws to compel her, nor look for witnesses to proclaim her) than any other Religion that ever assembled men to Divine Worship. For that of the Jews doth still consist in a sullen separation of themselves from the rest of human flesh, which is a fantastical pride of their own cleanness, and an uncivil disdain of the imagined contagiousness of others; and at this day, their cantonizing in Tribes, and shyness of alliance with neighbours, deserve not the term of mutual love, but rather seems a bestial melancholy of hearding into their own Walks. That of the ethnics, like this of Mahomet, consisted in the vain pride of Empire, and never enjoined a Jewish separation, but drew all Nations together; yet not as their companions of the same species, but as slaves to a yoke: Their sanctity was Honour, and their Honour only an impudent courage, or dexterity in destroying. But Christian Religion hath the innocence of Village neighbourhood, and did anciently in its politics rather promote the interest of Mankind then of States; and rather of all States then of One; for particular endeavours, only in behalf of our own homes, are signs of a narrow moral education, not of the vast kindness of Christian Religion, which likewise ordained as well an universal communion of bosoms, as a community of wealth. Such is Christian Religion in the precepts, and was once so in the practice. But I resolved my Poem should represent those of a former age, perceiving 'tis with the servants of Christ, as with other servants under temporal power, who with all cleanness, and even with officious diligence perform their duty in their Master's sight; but still as he grows longer absent, become more slothful, unclean, and false. And this, who ever compares the present with the Primitive times▪ may too palpably and with horror discern. When I considered the actions which I meant to describe, (those inferring the persons) I was again persuaded rather to choose those of a former age then the present: and in a Century so far removed, as might preserve me from their improper examinations who know not the requisites of a Poem, nor how much pleasure they lose (and even the pleasures of heroic poesy are not unprofitable) who take away the liberty of a Poet, and fetter his feet in the shackles of an Historian: For why should a Poet doubt in Story to mend the intrigues of Fortune by more delightful conveyences of probable Fiction, because austere Historians have entered into bond to truth? an obligation which were in Poets, as foolish and unnecessary as is the bondage of false Martyrs, who lie in chains for a mistaken opinion: But by this I would imply, that Truth narrative, and past, is the Idol of Historians, (who worship a dead thing) and truth operative, and by e●fects continually alive, is the Mistress of Poets, who hath not her existence in matter but in reason. I was likewise more willing to derive my theme from elder times, as thinking it no little mark of skilfulness to comply with the common Infirmity; for men (even of the best education) discover their eyes to be weak, when they look upon the glory of Virtue (which is great actions) and rather endure it at distance then near; being more apt to believe, and love the renown of predecessors, then of Contemporaries, whose deeds excelling theirs in their own sight, 〈◊〉 to upbraid them, and are not reverenced as examples of Virtue, but envied as the favours of Fortune: But to make great actions credible is the principal Art of Poets; who, though they avouch the utility of Fictions, should not (by altering and subliming Story) make use of their privilege to the detriment of the Reader: whose incredulity (when things are not represented in proportion) doth much allay the relish of his pity, hope, joy, and other Passions: For we may descend to compare the deceptions in poesy to those of them that profess▪ dextery of Hand, which resembles Conjuring, and to such we come not with the intention of Lawyers to examine the evidence of facts, but are content (if we like the carriage of their feigned motion) to pay for being well deceived. As in the choice of time, so of place, I have complied with the weakness of the generality of men; who think the best objects of their own country so little to the size of those abroad, as if they were showed them by the wrong end of a Prospective: for Man (continuing the appetites of his first Childhood, till he arrive at his second which is more froward) must be quieted with something that he thinks excellent, which he may call his own; but when he sees the like in other places (not staying to compare them) wrangles at all he hath. This leads us to observe the craftiness of the Comicks, who are only willing when they describe humour (and humour is the drunkenness of a Nation which no sleep can cure) to lay the Scene in their own country; as knowing we are (like the son of Noah) so little distasted to behold each others' shame, that we delight to see even that of a Father: yet when they would set forth greatness and excellent virtue (which is the theme of Tragedy) publicly to the people; they wisely (to avoid the quarrels of neighbourly envy) remove the Scene from home. And by their example I travailed too; and Italy (which was once the Stage of the World) I have made the Theatre, where I show in either Sex, some patterns of human life, that are (perhaps) fit to be followed. Having told you why I took the actions that should be my Argument, from men of our own Religion, and given you reasons for the choice of the time and place designed for those actions; I must next acquaint you with the Schools where they were bred; not meaning the Schools where they took their Religion, but Morality; for I know Religion is universally rather inherited then taught: and the most effectual Schools of Morality, are Courts and Camps: Yet towards the first, the people are unquiet through envy; and towards the other, through fear; and always jealous of both for Injustice, which is the natural scandal cast upon Authority, and great force. They look upon the outward Glory or Blaze of Courts, as Wilde-beasts in dark nights stare on their hunter's Torches; but though the expenses of Courts (whereby they shine) is that consuming glory in which the people think their liberty is wasted (for wealth is their Liberty and loved by them even to jealousy (being themselves a courser sort of Princes, apter to take then to pay) yet Courts (I mean all abstracts of the Multitude; either by King, or Assemblies) are not the Schools where men are bred to oppression, but the Temples where some times oppressors take Sanctuary; a safety which our reason must allow them. For the ancient laws of Sanctuary (Derived from God) provid●d chiefly for Actions that proceed●d from necessity; and who can imagine less than a necessity of oppressing the people, since they are never willing either to buy their Peace or to pay for War? Nor are Camps the Schools of wicked destroyer's, more than the Inns of Court (being the Nursery of Judges) are the Schools of Murderers; for as Judges are Avengers of private men against private Robbers, so are Armies the Avengers of the public against public Invaders (either civil or foreign) and Invaders are Robbers, though more in Countenance then those of the highway, because of their number. Nor is there other difference between Armies, when they move towards Sieges, or battle, and Judges moving in their Circuit (during the danger of extraordinary malefactors) with the Guards of the County; but that the latter is a less Army, and of less discipline. If any man can yet doubt of the necessary use of Armies, let him study that which was anciently called a Monster, the Multitude (for Wolves are commonly harmless when they are met alone, but very uncivil in herds) and he will not find that all his kindred by Adam are so tame, and gentle, as those Lovers that were bred in Arcadia: or to reform his opinion, let him ask why (during the utmost age of History) Cities have been at the charge of defensive Walls; and why Fortification hath been practised so long, till it is grown an Art? I may now believe I have usefully taken from Courts and Camps the patterns of such as will be fit to be imitated by the most necessary Men; and the most necessary men are those who become principal by prerogative of blood (which is seldom unassisted with education) or by greatness of mind, which, in exact definition is Virtue. The common crowd (of whom we are hopeless) we desert; being rather to be corrected by laws (where Precept is accompanied with Punishment) then to be taught by poesy; for few have arrived at the skill of Orpheus, or at his good fortune, whom we may suppose to have met with extraordinary Grecian beasts, when so successfully he reclaimed them with his Harp. Nor is it needful that heroic poesy should be leveled to the reach of Common men; for if the examples it presents prevail upon their Chiefs, the delight of Imitation (which we hope we have proved to be as effectual to good as to evil) will rectify by the rules, which those Chiefs establish of their own lives, the lives of all that behold them; for the example of life, doth as much surpass the force of precept, as Life doth exceed Death. In the choice of these Objects (which are as Sea-marks to direct the dangerous Voyage of Life) I thought fit to follow the Rule of Coasting maps, where the shelves and Rocks are described as well the safe channel; the care being equal how to avoid, as to proceed: and the Characters of men (whose passions are to be eschewed) I have derived from the Distempers of Love, or Ambition: for Love and Ambition are too often the raging fevers of great minds. Yet Ambition (if the vulgar acception of the word were corrected) would signify no more than an extraordinary lifting of the feet in the rough ways of Honour, over the impediments of Fortune; and hath a warmt'h (till it be chafed into a fever) which is necessary for every virtuous breast: for good men are guilty of too little appetite to greatness, and it either proceeds from that they call contentedness (but contentedness when examined doth mean something of laziness as well as moderation) or from some melancholy precept left of the cloister; where they would make life (for which the world was only made) more unpleasant than Death; as if Nature, the Vicegerent of God (who in providing delightful varieties which virtuous greatness can best possess, or assure peaceably to others, implicitly commanded the use of them) should in the necessaries of life (life being her chief business) though in her whole reign she never committed one error, need the council of friars; whose solitude makes them no more fit for such direction, than Prisoners long fette●'d are for a race. In saying this, I only awaken such retired men, as evaporate their strength of mind by close and long thinking; and would everywhere separate the Soul from the Body, ere we are Dead, by persuading us (though they were both created and have been long Companions together) that the preferment of the one must merely consist in deserting the other; teaching us to court the Grave, as if during the whole lease of life we were like Moles to live under ground; or as if long and well Dying were the certain means to Live in Heaven: Yet Reason (which, though the most profitable talon God hath given us, some Divines would have Philosophers to bury in the Napkin, and not put it to use) persuades us, that the painful activeness of Virtue (for Faith on which some wholly depend seems but a contemplative boast till the effects of it grow exemplary by action) will more probably acquire everlasting dignities. And surely if these severe Masters (who though obscure in Cells, take it ill if their very opinions rule not all, abroad) did give good men leave to be industrious in getting a Share of Governing the World, the Multitudes (which are but Tenants to a few Monarchs) would endure that subjection which God hath decreed them, with better order, and more ease; for the world is only ill governed because the wicked take more pains to get authority▪ then the virtuous; for the virtuous are often preached into retirement; which is to the public as unprofitable as their sleep; and the erroneousness of such lazy rest let Philosophers judge; since Nature (of whose body man thinks himself the chiefest member) hath not anywhere, at any time, been respited from action (in her, called motion) by which she universally preserves and makes Life. Thus much of Ambition which should have succeeded something I was saying of Love. Love in the Interpretation of the Envious, is softness; in the Wicked, good men suspect it for Lust; and in the Good, some spiritual men have given it the name of Charity: And these are but terms to this which seems a more considered Definition; that indefinite Love is Lust; and Lust when it is determined to one, is Love; This Definition too but intrudes itself on what I was about to say, which is, (and spoken with soberness though like a layman) that Love is the most acceptable imposition of Nature, the cause and preservation of Life, and the very healthfulness, of the mind, as well as of the body; but Lust (our raging fever) is more dangerous in Cities, than the Calenture in Ships. Now (Sir) I again ask you pardon, for I have again digressed; my immediate business being to tell you that the distempers of Love and Ambition are the only characters I designed to expose as objects of terror: and my purpose was also to assure you, that I never meant to prostitute wickedness in the Images of low and contemptible people, as if I expected the meanest of the multitude for my Readers (since only the Rabble is seen at common executions) nor intended to raise iniquity to that height of horror, till it might seem the fury of something worse than a beast. In order to the first, I believe the Spartans (who to dete●●● their children from drunkenness accustomed their Slaves to vomit before them) did by such fulsome examples rather teach them to disdain the Slaves, then to loathe Wine; for men seldom take notice of the Vice in abject persons, especially where necessity constrains it. And in observation of the second, I have thought, that those horrid spectacles (when the latter race of gladiators made up the excesses of Roman feasts) did more induce the Guests to de●est the cruelty of mankind, then increase their courage by beholding such an impudent scorn of Life. I have now given you the accomp● of such provisions as I made for this new Building; and you may next please (having examined the substance) to take a view of the form; and observe if I have methodically and with discretion disposed of the materialls● which with some curiosity I had collected. I cannot discern by any help from reading, or learned men, (who have been to me the best and briefest indices of Books) that any Nation hath in representment of great actions (either by heroics or dramatics) digested Story into so pleasant and instructive a method as the English by their Drama: and by that regular species (though narratively and not in Dialogue) I have drawn the body of an heroic Poem: In which I did not only observe the Symmetry (proportioning five Books to five Acts, and cantos to Scenes, (the Scenes having their number ever governed by occasion) but all the shadowings, happy strokes, secret graces, and even the drapery (which together make the second beauty) I have (I hope) exactly followed: and those compositions of second beauty, I observe in the Drama to be the under-walks, interwea●ing, or correspondence of lesser-design in Scenes, not the great motion of the main plot, and coherence of the Acts. The first Act is the general preparative, by rendering the chiefest characters of persons, and ending with something that looks like an obscure promise of design. The second begins with an introducement of new persons, so finishes all the characters, and ends with some little performance of that design which was promised at the parting of the first Act. The third makes a visible correspondence in the Under-walks (or lesser intrigues of persons; and ends with an ample turn of the main design, and expectation of a new. The fourth (ever having occasion to be the longest) gives a notorious turn to all the Underwalks, and a counter-turn to that main design which changed in the Third. The fifth begins with an entire diversion of the main, and dependent Plots; then makes the general correspondence of the persons more discernible, and ends with an easy untying of those particular knots, which made a contexture of the whole; leaving such satisfaction of probabilities with the spectator, as may persuade him that neither Fortune in the fate of the Persons, nor the Writer in the Representment, have been unnatural or exorbitant. To these Meander's of the English Stage I have cut out the walks of my Poem; which in this description may seem intricate and tedious; but will I hope (when men take pains to visit what they have h●ard described) appear to them as pleasant as a summer passage on a crooked River, where going about, and turning back, is as delightful as the delays of parting Lovers. In placing the Argument (as a Proem) before every Canto, I have not wholly followed the example of the Moderns; but averted it from that purpose to which I found it frequently used: for it hath been intended by others, as the contents of the Chapter, or as a Bill of Fare at a Venetian Feast; which is not brought before the meat to raise an expectation, but to satisfy the longing curiosity of the Guests. And that which I have called my Argument, is only meant as an assistance to the Readers memory, by containing brief hints, such, as if all the Arguments were successively read, would make him easily remember the mutual dependencies of the general design; yet each rather mentions every person acting, than their actions: But he is very unskilful that by Narratives before an historical Poem prevents expectation; for so he comes to have little success over the Reader (whom the Writer should surprise, and as it were keep prisoner for a time) as he hath on his Enemies, who commanding a party out to take them (and commonly Readers are justly Enemies to Writers) imparts openly the design ere he begins the action: Or he may be said to be as unluckily officious, as he that leads a wooing to a Mistress, one that already hath newly enjoyed her. I shall say a little, why I have chosen my interwoven Stanza of ●our, though I am not obliged to excuse the choice; for numbers in Verse must, like distinct kinds of music, be exposed to the uncertain and different taste of several Ears. Yet I may declare that I believed it would be more pleasant to the Reader, in a Work of Length, to give this respite or pause, between every Stanza (having endeavoured that each should contain a period) then to run him out of breath with continued Couplets. Nor does alternate rhyme by any lowliness of cadence make the sound less heroic, but rather adapt it to a plain and stately composing of music; and the brevity of the Stanza renders it less subtle to the Composer, and more easy to the Singer; which in stylo recitativo, when the Story is long, is chiefly requisite. And this was indeed (if I shall not betray vanity in my Confession) the reason that prevailed most towards my choice of this Stanza, and my division of the main work into cantos, every Canto including a sufficient accomplishment of some worthy design or action; for I had so much heat (which you, Sir, may call pride, since pride may be allowed in Pegasus, if it be a praise to other Horses) as to presume they might (like the Works of Homer ere they were joined together and made a Volume by the Athenian King) be sung at Village-feasts; though not to Monarchs after Victory, nor to Armies before battle. For so (as an inspiration of glory into the one, and of valour into the other) did Homer's spirit, long after his body's rest, wander in music about Greece. Thus you have the Model of what I have already built, or shall hereafter join to the same frame. If I be accused of Innovation, or to have transgressed against the method of the ancients; I shall think myself secure in believing, that a Poet who hath wrought with his own Instruments at a new design, is no more answerable for disobedience to predecessors, than lawmakers are liable to those old Laws which themselves have repealed. Having described the outward frame, the large rooms within, the lesser conveyances, and now the furniture; it were orderly to let you examine the matter of which that furniture is made: But though every owner who hath the Vanity to show his ornaments or hangings, must endure the curiosity, and censure of him that beholds them; yet I shall not give you the trouble of inquiring what is, but tell you of what I designed their substance, which is Wit: And Wit is the laborious, and the lucky resultances of thought, having towards its excellence (as we say of the strokes of Painting) as well a happiness, as care. It is a Web consisting of the sub●ilest threads, and like that of the Spider● is considerately woven out of ourselves; for a Spider may be said to consider, not only respecting his solemness and taci●e posture (like a grave scout in ambush for his Enemy) but because all things done, are either from consideration o● chance; and the works of chance ar● accomplishments of an instant, having commonly a dissimilitude; but he● are the works of time, and have their contextures alike. Wit is not only the luck and labour, but also the dexterity of the thought; rounding the world like the Sun with unimaginable motion; an● bringing swiftly home to the memo● universal surveys. It is the Soul Powder, which when suppressed (as fo●●idden from flying upward) blows 〈◊〉 the restraint; and loseth all force in farther ascension towards Heaven (the region of God) and yet by nature is much less able to make any inquisition downward towards Hell, the Cell of the Devil; but breaks through all about it (as far as the utmost it can reach) removes, uncovers, makes way for Light, where darkness was enclosed, till great bodies are more examinable by being scattered into parcels; and till all that find its strength (but most of mankind are strangers to Wit, as Indians are to Powder) worship it for the effects, as derived from the Deity. It is in Divines Humility, exemplariness, and Moderation: In statesmen, Gravity, Vigilance, benign Complacency, Secrecy, Patience, and Dispatch. In Leaders of Armies, Valour, painfulness, Temperance, Bounty, Dexterity in Punishing and Rewarding, and a sacred Certitude of Promise: It is in Poets a full comprehension of all recited in all these; and an ability to bring those comprehensions into action, when they shall so far forget the true measure of what is of greatest consequence to humanity● (which are things righteous, pleasant● and useful) as to think the delights o● greatness equal to that of poesy; or the Chiefs of any Profession mo●● necessary to the World then excelle●● Poets. Lastly, though Wit be not the envy of ignorant Men, 'tis often o● evil Statesmen, and of all such imperfect great spirits, as have it in a less● degree then Poets: for though no ma● envies the excellence of that which●● no proportion he ever tasted (as m●● cannot be said to envy the condition 〈◊〉 Angels) yet we may say the devil envi● the Supremacy of God, because he w●● in some degree partaker of his Glory. That which is not, yet is accounte●Wit, I will but slightly remember which seems very incident to impe●●fect youth and sickly age; Young me (as if they were not quite delivere from childhood whose first exerci●● is Language) imagine it consists 〈◊〉 the music of words, and believe they are made wise by refining their speech above the vulgar Dialect: which is a mistake almost as great as that of the people, who think orators (which is a title that crowns at riper years those that have practised the dexterity of tongue) the ablest men; who are indeed so much more unapt for governing, as they are more fit for Sedition: and it may be said of them as of the Witches of Norway, who can sell a Storm for a dollar, which for ten thousand they cannot allay. From the esteem of speaking they proceed to the admiration of what are commonly called Conceits, things that sound like the knacks or toys of ordinary Epigrammatists: and from thence, after more conversation and variety of objects, grow up to some force of Fancy; Yet even then like young Hawks they stray and fly far off; using their liberty as if they would ne'er return to the Lure; and often go at check ere they can make a steady view, and know their game. Old men, that have forgot their first childhood, and are returning to their second, think it lies in Agnominations, and in a kind of an alike tinkling of words; or else in a grave telling of wonderful things, or in comparing of times without a discovered partiality; which they perform so ill by favouring the past, that, as 'tis observed, if the bodies of men should grow less, though but an unmeasurable proportion in seven years; Yet reckoning from the Flood, they would not remain in the stature of Frogs: so if States and particular persons had impaired in Government, and increased in wickedness, proportionably to what▪ old Men affirm they have done, from their own infancy to their age; all public Policy had been long since Con●usion, and the congregated world would not su●fice now to people a village. The last thing they suppose to be Wit, is their bitter Morals, when they almost declare themselves Enemies to Youth and Beauty; by which Severity they seem cruel as Herod when he surprised the sleeping Children of Bethleem: For Youth is so far from wanting Enemies, that it is mortally its own; so unpractised, that it is everywhere cozened more than a Stranger among Jews; and hath an infirmity of sight more hurtful than blindness to Blind men; for though it cannot choose the way, it scorns to be led. And Beauty, though many call themselves her Friends, hath few but such as are false to her: Though the World sets her in a Throne, yet all about her (even her gravest counsellors) are traitors, though not in conspiracy, yet in their distinct designs; and to make her certain not only of distress but ruin, she is ever pursued by her most cruel enemy, the great Destroyer, Time. But I will proceed no farther upon Old men, nor in recording mistakes; lest finding so many more, than there be Verities, we might believe we walk in as great obscurity as the Egyptians when darkness was their Plague. Nor will I presume to call the matter of which the Ornaments or substantial parts of this Poem are composed, Wit; but only tell you my endeavour was, in bringing Truth (too often absent) home to men's bosoms, to lead her through unfrequented and new ways, and from the most remote Shades; by representing Nature though not in an affected, yet in an unusual dress. 'Tis now fit, after I have given you so long a survey of the Building, to render you some account of the Builder; that you may know by what time, pains, and assistance I have already proceeded, or may hereafter finish my work: and in this I shall take occasion to accuse, and condemn, as Papers unworthy of light, all those hasty digestions of thought which were published in my Youth; a sentence not pronounced out of melancholy rigour, but from a cheerful obedience to the just authority of experience: For that grave Mistress of the World, Experience (in whose profitable school those before the Flood stayed long, but we like wanton Children come thither late, yet too soon are called out of it, and fetched home by Death) hath taught me, that the engenderings of unripe age become abortive, and deformed; and that after obtaining more years, those must needs prophesy with ill success, who make use of their Visions in Wine; That when the ancient Poets were valued as Prophets, they were long and painful in watching the correspondence of Causes, ere they presumed to foretell Effects: and that 'tis a high presumption to entertain a Nation (who are a Poets standing Guests, and require monarchical respect) with hasty provisions; as if a Poet might imitate the familiar dispatch of falconers, mount his Pegasus, unhood his Muse, and with a few flights, boast he hath provided a feast for a Prince. Such posting upon Pegasus I have long since forborn; and during my journey in this Work have moved with a flow place; that I might make my surveys as one that traveled not to bring home the names, but the proportion and nature of things: and in this I am made wise by two great examples; for the friends of Virgil acknowledge he was many years in doing honour to AEneas (still contracting at night into a closer force the abundance of his morning strengths) and Statius rather seems to boast then blush, when he confesses he was twice Seven years in renowning the War between Argos and Thebes. Next to the usefulness of Time (which here implies ripe Age) I believed pains most requisite to this undertaking: for though painfulness in Poets (according to the usual negligence of our Nation in examining, and their diligence to censure) seems always to discover a want of natural force, and is traduced, as if poesy concerned the world no more than Dancing; whose only grace is the quickness and facility of motion; and whose perfection is not of such public consequence, that any man can merit much by attaining it with long labour: yet let them consider, and they will find (nor can I stay long ere I convince them in the important use of poesy) the natural force of a Poet more apparent, by but confessing that great forces ask great labour in managing, then by an arrogrant braving the world, when he enters the field with his undisciplined first thoughts: For a wise Poet, like a wise general, will not show his strengths till they are in exact government and order; which are not the postures of chance, but proceed from Vigilance and Labour. Yet to such painful Poets some upbraid the want of extemporary fury, or rather Inspiration; a dangerous word, which many have of late successfully used; and Inspiration is a spiritual Fit, derived from the ancient ethnic Poets, who then, as they were Priests, were statesmen too, and probably loved Dominion; and as their well dissembling of inspiration begot them reverence then, equal to that which was paid to laws; so these who now profess the same fury, may perhaps by such authentic example pretend authority over the people; It being not unreasonable to imagine, they rather imitate the Greek Poets than the Hebrew Prophets, since the later were inspired for the use of others; and these, like the former, prophecy for themselves. But though the ancient Poets are excused, as knowing the weak constitution of those Deities from whom they took their Priesthood; and the frequent necessity of dissembling for the ease of government; yet these (who also from the chief to the meanest are statesmen and Priests, but have not the luck to be Poets) should not assume such saucy familiarity with a true God. From the time and labour required to my Poem, let me proceed to my Assistants; by which I shall not so much attest my own weakness, as discover the difficulties and greatness of such a work. For when Solomon made use of his Neighbours towards his building, he lost no reputation, nor by demanding those aids was thought a lesser Prince; but rather published his wisdom, in rightly understanding the vast extent of his enterprise: who likewise with as much glory made use of Fellers of wood, and Hewers of Stone, as of learned Architects: Nor have I refrained to be obliged to men of any science, as well mechanical as liberal: Nor when Memory (from that various and plentiful stock, with which all observers are furnished that have had diversity of life) presented me by chance with any figure, did I lay it a side as useless, because at that instant I was not skilful to manage it artfully; but I have stayed and recorded such objects, till by consulting with right Masters I have disposed of them without mistake; It being no more ●hame to get Learning at that very time, and from the same Text; when, and by which, we instruct others; then for a forward Scout, discovering the Enemy, to save his own life at a pass, where he than teacheas his Party to escape. In remembering mine own helps, I have cons●dered those which others in the same necessity have taken; and find that Writers (contrary to my inclination) are apter to be beholding to Books then to men; not only as the first are more in their possession (being more con●tant Companions than dearest friends) but because they commonly make such use of treasure found in Books, as of other treasure belonging to the Dead and hidden under ground; for they dispose of both with great secrecy, defacing the shape or images of the one, as much as of the other; through fear of having the original of their stealth, or abundance discovered. And the next cause why Writers are more in Libraries then in Company, is, that Books are easily opened, and learned men are usually shut up by a froward or envious humour of retention; or else unfold themselves, so as we may read more of their weakness and vanity than wisdom; imitating the Holiday custom in great cities, where the shops of Chaundry and slight wares are familiarly open, but those of solid and staple merchandise are proudly locked up. Nor indeed can it be expected that all great doctors are of so benign a nature, as to take pains in gaining treasure (of which Knowledge is the greatest) with intent to enrich others so easily, as if they stood everywhere with their Pockets spread, and ready to be picked: Nor can we read of any Father, who so far and secretly adopted his son to a Book of his own writing, as that his Son might be thought author of that written Wit, as much as his Father was author of him: Nor of any Husband that to his darling Wife would so far surrender his wisdom, as that in public, he could endure to let her use his Dictates, as if she would have others think her wiser than himself. By this remembrance of that usual parsimony in owners of Wit, towards such as would make use of their plenty; I lament the fortune of others, and may wish the Reader to congratulate mine; For I have found Friends as ready as Books, to regulate my conceptions, or make them more correct, easy, and apparent. But though I am become so wise, by knowing myself, as to believe the thoughts of divers transcend the best which I have written; yet I have admitted from no man any change of my design, nor very seldom of my sense; For I resolved to have this Poem subsist, and continue throughout, with the same Complexion and Spirit; though it appear but like a plain family, of a neighbourly alliance, who marry into the same moderate quality and garb, and are fearful of introducing strangers of greater rank, lest the shining presence of such, might seem to upbraid, and put all about them out of countenance. And now, Sir, that the Reader may (whom Writers are fain to court, draw in, and keep with artifice, so shy men grow of Books) believe me worthy of him, I cannot forbear to thank you in public, for examining, correcting, and allowing this Poem in parcels ere it arrived at the contexture: by which you have performed the just degrees of proceeding with Poets; who, during the gaiety and wantonness of the Muse, are but as children to Philosophers (though of some Giant race) whose first thoughts (wild, and roaming far off) must be brought home, watched, and interrogated, and after they are made more regular, be encouraged and praised for doing well, that they may delight in aiming at perfection. By such a Method the Muse is taught to become Master of her own and others' strength: and who is he so learned (how proud soever with being cherished in the bosom of Fame) that can hope, (when through the several ways of Science, he seeks Nature in her hidden walks) to make his Journey short, unless he call you to be his Guide? and who so guided can suspect his safety, even when he travels through the Enemy's country? For such is the vast field of Learning, where the learned (though not numerous enough to be an Army) lie as small parties, maliciously in Ambush, to destroy all new Men that look into their Quarters. And from such, you, and those you lead, are secure; because you move not by common Maps but have painfully made your own Prospect; and travel now like the sun, not to inform yourself, but enlighten the World. And likewise, when by the strict survey and Government that hath been had over this Po●m, I shall think to govern the Reader (who, though he be noble, may perhaps judge of supreme Power like a very Commoner, and rather approve Authority, when it is in many, then in one) I must acquaint him, that you had not alone the trouble of establishing and destroying; but enjoyed your intervals and ease by two Colleagues; two that are worthy to follow you into the Closets of Princes; if the knowledge of Men past, (of whom Books are the remaining minds) or of the present (of whom Conversation is the useful and lawful Spy) may make up such greatness, as is fit for great Courts: or if the rays that proceed from the poetic Planet be not a little too strong for the sight of modern Monarchs who now are too seldom taught in their youth, like Eaglets to fortify their eyes by often soaring near the Sun. And though this be here but my testimony, it is too late for any of you to disclaim it; for since you have made it valid by giving yours of GONDIBERT under your hands, you must be content to be used by me, as Princes are by their preferred Subjects, who in the very act of taking Honour, return it to the giver; as benefits received by the Creature manifest the power, and redound to the glory of the creator. I am now, Sir, (to your great comfort, that have been thus ill and long diverted) arrived at my last consideration, which is, to satisfy those who may inquire why I have taken so much pains to become an author? or why any man stays so long sweating at the fire of Invention, to dress the food of the Mind, when Readers have so imperfect stomachs, as they either devour Books with over hasty Digestion, or grow to loathe them from a surfeit? And why I more especially made my task an heroic Poem? I shall involve the two first Questions in one; as submitting to be concerned amongst the generality of Writers; whose Enemies being many, and now mine, we must join forces to oppose them. Men are chiefly provoked to the toil of compiling Books, by love of Fame, and often by officiousness of Conscience, but seldom with expectation of Riches: for those that spend time in writing to instruct others, may find leisure to inform themselves, how mean the provisions are which busy and studious minds can make for their own sedentary bodies: And Learned men (to whom the rest of the world are but Infants) have the same foolish affection in nourishing others minds, as Pelicans in feeding their young; which is, at the expense of the very subsistence of Life. 'Tis then apparent they proceed by the instigation of Fame or Conscience; and I believe many are persuaded by the first (of which I am One) and some are commanded by the second. Nor is the desire of Fame so vain as divers have rigidly imagined; Fame being (when belonging to the Living) that which is more gravely called, a steady and necessary reputation; and without it, hereditary Power, or acquired greatness can never quietly govern the World. 'Tis of the Dead a musical glory, in which God, the author of excellent goodness, vouchsafes to take a continual share; For the remembered virtues of g●eat men are chiefly such of his works (mentioned by King David) as perpetually praise him: and the good fame of the Dead prevails by example much more than the reputation of the Living, because the later is always suspected by our Envy, but the other is cheerfully allowed and religiously admired: for Admiration (whose Eyes are ever weak) stands still, and at gaze upon great things acted far off; but when they are near, walks slightly away as from familiar objects. Fame is to our sons a solid Inheritance, and not unuseful to remote Posterity; and to our Reason, 'tis the first, though but a little taste, of Eternity. Those that write by the command of Conscience (thinking themselves able to instruct others, and consequently obliged to it) grow commonly the most voluminous; because the pressures of Conscience are so incessant, that she is never satisfied with doing enough: for such as be newly made the captives of God (many appearing so to themselves, when they first begin to wear the fetters of Conscience) are like common Slaves, when newly taken; who, terrified with a fancy of the severity of absolute Masters, abuse their diligence out of fear, and do ill, rather than appear idle. And this may be the cause why Libraries are more than double-lined with spiritual Books or Tracts of Morality; the later being the spiritual Counsels of laymen; and the newest of such great volumes (being usually but transcriptions or translations) differ so much from the ancients, as later days from those of old, which difference is no more than an alteration of names, by removing the ethnics to make way for the Sa●nts. These are the effects of their labours, who are provoked to become authors, merely out of Conscience; and Conscience we may again aver to be often so unskilful and timorous, that it seldom gives a wise and steady account of God; but grows jealous of him, as of an Adversary, and is after melancholy visions like a fearful Scout, after he hath ill surveyed the Enemy, who then makes incong●uous, long, and terrible Tales. Having confessed that the desire of Fame made me a Writer; I must declare, why in my riper age I chose to gain it more especially by an heroical Poem; and the heroic being by most allowed to be the most beautiful of Poems, I shall not need to decide the quarrels of Poets about the Degrees of Excellence in poesy: but 'tis not amiss ere I avow the usefulness of the science in general (which was the cause of my undertaking) to remember the value it had from the greatest and most worthy spirits in all Ages: For I will not abstain (though it may give me the reputation but of common reading) to mention, that Pisistratus, (though a Tyrant) lived with the Praise and died with the Blessing of all Greece, for gathering the scattered limbs of Homer's Works into a Body; and that Great Alexander, by publicly conversing with it, attained the universal opinion of wit; the fame of such inward forces conducing as much to his Conquests, as his Armies abroad: That the Athenian prisoners were thought worthy of life and liberty for singing the Tragedies of Euripides: That Thebes was saved from destruction by the victor's reverence to the memory of Pindar: That the elder Scipio (who governed all the Civil world) lay continually in the bosom of E●nius: That the great Numanti● and Laelius (no less renowned) were openly proud when the Romans believed they assisted Terence in his Comedies: That Augustus (to whom the mysteries of universal Empire were more familiar than domestic Dominion to Modern Kings) made Virgil the partner of his joys, and would have divided his business with Horace: and that Lucan was the fear and envy of Nero. If we approach nearer our own times, we may add the triumphal Entry which the Papacy gave to Petrarch; and how much Tasso is still the glory and delight of Italy. But as in this hasty Muster of Poet● and listing their confederates, I shall by omitting many, deprive them of that pay which is due from Fame; so I may now by the opinion of some Divines (whom notwithstanding I will reverence in all their distinct habits and fashions of the mind) ●e held partial and too bold, by adding to the first number (though I range them upon holy ground and aside) Moses, David, and Solomon, for their Songs, psalms, and anthems: the second being the acknowledged Favourite of God, whom he had gained by excellent Praises in sacred poesy. And I fear (since poesy is the clearest light by which they find the soul who seek it) that Poets have in their fluent kindness diverted from the right use, and spent too much of that spiritual talon in the honour of mortal Princes: for divine Praise (when in the high perfection, as in Poets, and only in them) is so much the uttermost and whole of Religious worship, that all other parts of Devotion serve but to make it up. Gondibert lib. 2. Canto. 6. 89. Praise, is Devotion fit for mighty Minds; The differing World's agreeing Sacrifice; Where Heaven divided Faiths united finds: But prayer in various discord upward flies. 90. For prayer the Ocean is, where diversely Men steer their course, each to a several Coast; Where all our interests so discordant be, That half beg winds by which the rest are lost. 91. By Penitence when We ourselves for sake, 'Tis but in wise design on pileous Heaven; In Praise We nobly give what God may take, And are without a Beggars blus● forgiven. 92. It's utmost force, like Powder's, is unknown; And though weak King's excess of Praise may fear, Yet when 'tis here, like Powder dangerous grown, Heaven's Vault receives what would The Palace tear. After this contemplation, how acceptable the voice of poesy hath been to God, we may (by descending from Heaven to Earth) consider how useful it is to Men; and among Men, Divines are the chief, because ordained to temper the rage of human power by spiritual menaces, as by sudden and strange threatenings, madness is frighted into reason; and they are ●ent hither as leigers from God, to conserve in steadfast motion the slippery joints of Government; and to persuade an amity in divided Nations: therefore to Divines I first address myself; and presume to ask them, why, ever since their Dominion was first allowed, at the great change of Religions, (though ours, more than any, inculcates obedience, as an easy Medicine to cool the impatient and raging World into a quiet rest) mankind hath been more unruly than before? it being visible that Empire decreased with the increase of Christianity; and that one weak Prince did anciently su●fice to govern many strong Nations: but now one little Province is too hard for their own wise King: and a small republic hath seventy years maintained thei● revolt to the disquiet of many Monarchs. Or if Divines reply, we cannot expect the good effects of their o●fice, because their spiritual Dominion is not allowed as absolute; then it may be asked them more severely, why 'tis not allowed? for wherever there hath been great degrees of power (which hath been often, and long in the Church) it discovers (though worldly vicissitude be objected as an excuse) that the managers of such power, since they endeavoured not to enlarge it, believed the increase unrighteous; or were in acting, or contriving that endeavour, either negligent or weak: For Power like the hasty Vine, climbs up apace to the Supporter; but if not skilfully attended and dr●ss'd, instead of spreading, and bearing fruit, grows high, and naked; and then (like empty title) being soon useless to others, becomes neglected, and unable to support itself. But if Divines have failed in governing Princes (that is, of being entirely believed by them) yet they might obliquely have ruled them, in ruling the People; by whom of late, Princes have been governed; and they might probably rule the People, because the Heads of the Church (where ever Christianity is preached) are Te●ra●chs of Time; of which they command the fourth Division; for to no less the Sabbaths, and days of Saints amount; and during those days of spiritual triumph, Pulpits are Thrones; and the people obliged to open their Ears, and let in the ordinances and commands of Preachers; who likewise are not without some little Regency throughout the rest of the Year; for than they may converse with the Laity, from whom they have commonly such respect (and respect soon opens the door to persuasion) as shows their Congregations not deaf in those holy seasons, when Speaking predominates. But notwithstanding these advantages, the Pulpit hath little prevailed; for the World is in all Regions reversed, or shaken by disobedience; an Engine with which the great Angels (for such were the Devils, and had faculties much more sublimed than Men) believed they could disorder Heaven. And 'tis not want of capacity in the lower Auditory that makes Doctrine so unsuccessful; for the People are not simple, since the Gentry (Even of strongest Education) lack sufficient defence against them, and are hourly surprised in (their common Ambushes) their Shops: For on sacred days they walk gravely and sadly from Temples, as if they had newly buried their sinful Fathers; at night sleep as if they never needed forgiveness; and rise with the next sun, to lie in wait for the Noble, and the Studious. And though these quiet Cousners are amongst the People, esteemed their steady Men; yet they honour the Courage, and more active parts of such disobedient Spirits, as disdaining thus tamely to deceive, attempt bravely to rob the State; and the State they believe (though the helm were held by Apostles) would always consist of such Arch-robbers, as who ever strips them, but waves the tedious satisfaction which the Lazy expect from Laws, and comes a shorter way to his own. Thus unapt for obedience (in the condition of Beasts whose appetite is Liberty, and their Liberty a licence of Lust) the People have often been, since a long and notorious power hath continued with Divines; whom though with reverence we accuse for mistaken Lenity; yet are we not so cruel to expect they should behave themselves to sinners like fierce Phineas, or preach with their Swords drawn, to kill all they cannot persuade: But our meaning is, to show how much their Christian meekness hath deceived them in taming this wild Monster, the People; and a little to rebuke them for neglecting the assistance of Poets; and for upbraiding the ethnics, because the Poets managed their Religion; as if Religion could walk more prosperously abroad then when Morality (respectfully, and bareheaded as her Usher) prepares the way: it being no less true that during the Dominion of poesy, a willing and peaceful obedience to superiors becalmed the World; then that obedience like the Marriage yoke, is a restraint more needful and advantageous than liberty; and hath the same reward of pleasant quietness, which is anciently had, when Adam, till his disobedience, enjoyed Paradise. Such are the effects of sacred poesy which charms the People with harmonious precepts; and whose aid Divines should not disdain, since their Lord (the Saviour of the World) vouchsafed to deliver his Doctrine in parabolical Fictions. Those that be of next importance are Leaders of Armies; and such I measure not by the suffrages of the People, who give them respect as Indians worship the evil Spirit, rather for fear of harm, then for affection; but esteem them as the painful protectors, and enlargers of Empire by whom it actively moves; and such active motion of Empire is as necessary as the motion of the Sea where all things would putrify, and infect one an other, if the Element were quiet; so is it with men's minds on shore, when that Element of greatness and honour, Empire, stands still; of which the largeness is likewise as needful, as the vastness of the Sea; For God ordained not huge Empire as proportionable to the Bodies, but to the Minds of Men; and the Minds of Men are most monstrous, and require more space for agitation and the hunting of others, than the Bodies of Whales: But he that believes men such moderate Sheep as that many are peacefully contained in a narrow Fold, may be better informed in America; where little Kings never enjoy a harml●sse neighbourhood, unless protected defensively amongst themselves, by an Emperor that hath wide possessions, and priority over them (as in some few places) but when restrained in narrow dominion, where nobody commands and hinders their nature, they quarrel like Cocks in a Pit; and the Sun in a days travel there, ●ees more battles (but not of consequence, because their Kings though many, are little) then in Europe in a Year. To Leaders of Armies, as to very necessary Men (whose o●fice requires the uttermost aids of art, and Nature, and rescues the sword of Justice, when 'tis wrested from supreme Power by Commotion) I am now addressed; and must put them in mind (though not upbraidingly) how much their Mighty predecessors were anciently obliged to Poets; whose Songs (recording the praises of Conduct and Valour) were esteemed the chiefest rewards of Victory; And since Nature hath made us prone to Imitation (by which we equal the best or the worst) how much those Images of Action prevail upon our minds, which are delightfully drawn by Poets: For the greatest of the Grecian Captains have confessed, that their counsels have been made wise, and their Courages warm, by Homer: and since Praise is a Pleasure which God hath invited, and with which he often vouchsafed to be pleased when it was sent him by his own Poet; why is it not lawful for virtuous men to be cherished, and magnified with hearing their vigilance, Valour, and good fortune (the latter being more the immediate gift of Heaven, because the effect of an unknown cause) commended, and made eternal in poesy? But perhaps the art of praising Armies into great, and instant action, by singing their former deeds (an Art with which the ancients made Empire so large) is too subtle for Modern Leaders; who as they cannot reach the heights of poesy, must be content with a narrow space of Dominion: and narrow Dominion breeds evil, peevish, and vexatious minds, and a national self-opinion, like simple Jewish arrogance; and the Jews were extraordinary proud in a very little country: For men in contracted governments are but a kind of Prisoners; and Prisoners by long restraint grow wicked, malicious to all abroad, and foolish esteemers of themselves; as if they had wrong in not enjoying every thing which they can only see out of windows. Our last application is to Statesmen; and Makers of Laws; who may be reasonably reduced to one; since the second differ no more from the first, than Judges (the Copies of lawmakers) differ from their Originals: for Judges, like all bold Interpteters, by often altering the Text, make it quite new; and statesmen (who differ not from lawmakers in the act, but in the manner of doing) make new Laws presumptuously without the consent of the People; but Legislators more civilly seem to whistle to the Beast, and stroke him into the Yoke: and in the Yoke of State, the People (with too much pampering) grow soon unruly and draw awry; Yet statesmen and judges (whose business is governing, and the thing to be governed is the People) have amongst us (we being more proud and mistaken then any other famous Nation) looked gravely upon Poetry, and with a negligence that betrayed a Northerly Ignorance; as if they believed they could perform their work without it. But Poets (who with wise diligence study the People, and have in all ages, by an insensible influence governed their manners) may justly smile when they perceive that Divines, Leaders of Armies, statesmen and judges, think Religion, the Sword, or (which is unwritten Law, and a secret confederacy of Chiefs) Policy, or Law (which is written, but seldom rightly read) can give, without the help of the Muses, a long and quiet satisfaction in government: For Religion is to the wicked and faithless (who are many) a jurisdiction against which they readily rebel: because it rules severely, yet promiseth no worldly recompense for obedience; obedience being by every human power invited with assurances of vi●ible advantage. The Good (who are but few) need not the power of Religion to make them better, the power of Religion proceeding from her threatenings, which though mean Weapons, are fitly used, since she hath none but base Enemies. We may observe too, that all Virtuous men are so taken up with the rewards of Heaven, that they live as if out of the World; and no government receives assistance from any man merely as he is good; but as that goodness is active in temporal things. The Sword is in the hand of justice no guard to Government, but then when justice hath an Army for her own defence; and Armies, if they were not pervertible by Faction, yet are to commonwealths like King's Physicians to poor Patients; who buy the cure of their disordered bodies at so high a rate, that they may be said to change their sickness for Famine. Policy (I mean of the Living, not of the Dead; the one being the last rules or designs governing the Instant; the other, those Laws that began Empire) is as mortal as statesmen themselves; whose incessant labour make that hectic Fever of the mind, which insensibly dispatches the body: and when we trace statesmen through all the Histories of Courts, we find their Inventions so unnecessary to those that succeed at the Helm, or so much envied as they scarce last in authority till the inventors are buried: and change of Designs in statesmen (their designs being the Weapons by which States are defended) grows as destructive to Government, as a continual change of various Weapons is to Armies; which must receive with ruin any sudden assault, when want of practice makes unactiveness. We cannot urge that the ambition of statesmen (who are obnoxious to the People) doth much disorder Government; because the people's anger, by a perpetual coming in of new oppressors is so diverted in considering those whom their Eyes but lately left, as they have not time enough to rise for the public: and evil successors to Power are in the troubled Stream of State like succeeding Tides in Rivers, where the mud of the former is hidden by the filth of the last. Laws, if very ancient, grow as doubtful and difficult as Letters on buried Marble, which only Antiquaries read; but if not Old, they want that reverence which is therefore paid to the virtues of ancestors, because their crimes come not to our remembrance; and yet great Men must be long dead whose ills are forgotten. If Laws be New, they must be made either by very Angels, or by Men that have some vices; and those being seen, make their Virtues suspected; for the People no more esteem able men, whose defects they know, (though but errors incident to Humanity) than an Enemy values a strong Army having experience of their errors. And new Laws are held but the projects of necessitous Power, new Nets spread to entangle us; the Old being accounted too many, since most are believed to be made for Forfeitures: and such letting of blood (though intended by lawmakers for our health) is to the people always out of Season: for those that love life with too much Passion (and Money is the lifeblood of the People) ever fear a Consumption. But, be lawmakers as able as Nature or Experience (which is the best Art) can make them; yet, though I will not yield the Wicked to be wiser than the Virtuous, I may say, offences are too hard for the Laws, as some Beasts are too wily for their Hunters; and that Vice overgrows Virtue, as much as Weeds grow faster than medicinable Herbs: or rather that sin, like the fruitful slime of Nilus, doth increase into so many various shapes of Serpents (whose walks and retreats are winding and unknown) that even justice (the painful pursuer of Mischief) is become weary and amazed. After these Meditations, methinks Government resembles a Ship, where though Divines, Leaders of Armies, statesmen, and judges are the trusted Pilots; yet it moves by the means of Winds, as uncertain as the breath of Opinion; and is laden wIth the People; a Freight much looser and more dangerous than any other living stowage; being as troublosome in fair weather, as Horses in a Storm. And how can these Pilots steadily maintain their Course to the Land of Peace and Plenty, since they are often divided at the Helm? For Divines (when they consider great Chiefs) suppose Armies to be sent from God for a temporary Plague, not for continual Jurisdiction; and that God's extreme punishments (of which, Armies be the most violent) are ordained to have no more lastingness than the extremes in Nature. They think (when they consider statesmen) Policy hath nothing of the Dove, and being all Serpent, is more dangerous, than the dangers it pretends to prevent: and that out-witting (by falsehood and corruption) adverse States, or the People (though the people be often the greater enemy and more perilsome being nearest) is but giving reputation to sin, and that to maintain the public by politic evils, is a base prostitution of Religion, and the prostitution of Religion is that unpardonable whoredom which so much angered the Prophets. They think Law nothing but the Bible forcibly usurped by covetous Lawyers, and disguised in a Paraphrase more obscure than the Text; and that 'tis only want of just reverence to Religion which doth expose us to the charges and vexations of Law. The Leaders of Armies, accuse Divines for unwisely raising the war of the World by opposite Doctrine, and for being more indiscreet in thinking to appease it by persuasion; forgetting that the dispatchful ending of war is blows; and that the natural region for Disputes, when Nations are engaged (though by Religion) is the Field of battle, not Schools and Academies; which they believe by their restless controversies less civil than Camps; as intestine Quarrel is held more barbarous than foreign War. They think statesmen to them (Unless dignified with Military office) but mean Spies that like African foxes (who attend on Lions, ranging before and about, for their valiant prey) shrink back till the danger be subdued, and then with insatiate hunger come in for a share: Yet sometimes with the Eye of Envy (which enlarges objects like a multiplying-glass) they behold these statesmen, and think them immense as Whales; the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble the Ocean till it boil; after a little hasty wonder, they consider them again with disdain of their low constraints at Court; where they must patiently endure the little follics of such small favourites as wait even near the wisest Thrones; so fantastically weak seem Monarchs in the sickness of Care (a fever in the head) when for the humorous pleasure of Diversity, they descend from Purple beds, and seek their ease upon the ground. These great Leaders say also that Law moves slowly, as with fettered feet, and is too tedious in redress of wrongs; whilst in Armies, Justice seems to ride post, and overtakes Offenders ere the contagion of crimes can infect others: and though in Courts and Cities great men fence often with her, and with a forcive slight put by her sword; yet when she retires to Camps, she is in a posture not only to punish the offences of particular greatness, but of injurious Nations. statesmen look on Divines as men whose long solitude and Meditations on Heaven hath made them Strangers upon Earth: and 'tis acquaintance with the World, and knowledge of Man that makes abilities of Ruling: for though it may be said that a sufficient belief of Doctrine would bege● obedience (which is the uttermost design of governing) yet since diversity of Doctrine doth distract all auditors, and makes them doubtfully dispose their obedience (even towards spiritual powers, on which many would have the temporal depend) therefore statesmen think themselves more fit to manage Empire than Divines; whose usefulness consists in persuasion; and persuasion is the last medicine (being the most desperate) which statesmen apply to the distemper of the people: for their distemper is madness, and madness is best cured with terror and force. They think that Leaders of Armies are to great Empire, as great Rivers to the Continent; which make an easy access of such benefits as the Metropolis (the seat of Power) would else at vast distances with difficulty reach: yet often like proud Rivers when they swell, they destroy more by once overflowing their borders at home, than they have in long time acquired from abroad: They are to little Empire like the Sea to low Islands; by nature a defence from foreigners, but by accident, when they rage, a deluge to their own shore. And at all seasons statesmen believe them more dangerous to government then themselves: for the popularity of statesmen is not so frequent as that of generals; or if by rare sufficiency of Art it be gained, yet the force of crowds in Cities, compared to the validity of men of Arms and Discipline, would appear like the great number of Sheep to a few Wolves, rather a cause of Comfort then of terror. They think that chief Ministers of Law by unskilful integrity, or love of popularity (which shows the Mind as meanly born as bred) so earnestly pursue the protection of the people's right, that they neglect the public Interest; and though the people's right and public Interest be the same, yet usually by the People, the Ministers of Law mean Private-men, and by the other, the State; and so the State and the People are divided, as we may say a man is divided within himself, when reason and passion (and Passion is folloy) dispute about consequent actions; and if we were called to assist at such intestine war, we must side with Reason, according to our duty by the Law of Nature; and nature's Law, though not written in Stone (as was the Law of Religion) hath taken deep impression in the Heart of Man, which is harder than marble of Mount Sinai. Chief Ministers of Law think, Divines in Government, should like the penal Statutes, be choicely and but seldom used; for as those Statutes are rigorously inquisitive after venial faults (punishing our very manners and weak constitution, as well as insolent appetite; so Divines (that are made vehement with contemplating the dignity of the Offended (which is God) more than the frailty of the Offender) govern as if men could be made Angels ere they come to Heaven. Great Ministers of Law think likewise that Leaders of Armies are like ill Physicians, only fit for desperate cures, whose blindness calls in the assistance of Fortune, during the fears and troubles of Art: Yet the health they give to a distempered State is not more accidental than the preservation of it is uncertain; because they often grow vain with success, and encourage a restored State to such hazards, as show like irregularity of life in other recovered bodies; such as the cautions and ancient gravity of Law dissuades: For Law (whose temperate design is safety) rather prevents by constancy of Medicine (like a continue Diet) diseases in the body-politic, then depends after a permitted sickness upon the chance of recovery. They think statesmen strive to be as much Judges of Law as themselves, being chief Ministers of Law, are Judges of the People; and that even good statesmen pervert the Law more than evil Judges: For Law was anciently meant a Defensive Armour, and the people took it as from the magazine of Justice, to keep them safe from each others' violence: but statesmen use it as offensive Arms, with which, in foraging to get relief for Supreme Power, they often wound the public. Thus we have first observed the Four chief aids of Government, (Religion, Arms, Policy, and Law) defectively applied, and then we have found them weak by an emulous war amongst themselves: it follows next, we should introduce to strengthen those principal aids (still making the People our direct object) some collateral help; which I will safely presume to consist in poesy. We have observed that the People since the latter time of Christian religion, are more unquiet than in former Ages: so disobedient and fierce, as if they would shake off the ancient imputation of being Beasts, by showing their Masters they know their own strength: and we shall not err by supposing that this conjunction of Fourfould Power hath failed in the effects of authority, by a misapplication; for it hath rather endeavoured to prevail upon their bodies, than their minds; forgetting that the martial art of constraining is the best; which assaults the weaker part; and the weakest part of the people is their minds; for want of that which is the minds only Strength, Education; but their Bodies are strong by continual labour; for Labour is the Education of the body. Yet when I mention the misapplication of force, I should have said, they have not only failed by that, but by a main error; Because the subject on which they should work is the Mind; and the Mind can never be constrained, though it may be gained by persuasion: And since persuasion is the principal Instrument which one can bring to fashion the brittle and misshapen metal of the Mind; none are so fit aids to this important works, as Poets: whose art is more than any enabled with a voluntary, and cheerful assistance of Nature; and whose operations are as resistless secret, easy, and subtle, as is the influence of Planets. I must not forget (left I be prevented by the Vigilance of the Reader) that I have profe●s'd not to represent the beauty of virtue in my Poem, with hope to persuade common men; and I have said that Divines have failed in discharging their share of Government, by depending upon the effects of persuasion; and that statesmen in managing the people rely not upon the persuasion of Divines, but upon force. In my despair of reducing the minds of Common men, I have not confessed any weakness of poesy in the general Science; but rather infered the particular strength of the heroic; which hath a force that overmatches the infancy of such minds as are not enabled by degrees of Education; but there are lesser forces in other kinds of poesy, by which they may train, and prepare their understandings; and Princes, and Nobles being reformed and made angelical by the heroic, will be predominant lights, which the People cannot chose but use for direction; as glowworms take in, and keep the Sun's ●eams till they shine, and make day to themselves. In saying that Divines have vainly hoped to continue the peace of Government by persuasion, I have employed such persuasions as are accompanied with threatenings, and seconded by force; which are the persuasions of Pulpits; where is presented to the Obstinate, Hell after Death; and the civil Magistrate during Life constrains such obedience as the Church doth ordain. But the persuasions of poesy in stead of menaces, are Harmonious and delightful in●inuations, and never any constraint; unless the ravishment of Reason may be called Force. And such Force, (contrary to that which Divines, Commanders, statesmen, and Lawyer's use) begets such obedience as is never weary or grieved. In declaring that statesmen think not the State wholly secure by such manners as are bred from the persuasions of Divines, but more willingly make Government rely upon military force; I have neither concluded that Poets are unprofi●able, nor that statesmen think so; for the wisdom of Poets, would first make the Images of Virtue so amiable that her beholders should not be able to look off (rather gently, and delightfully infusing then inculcating Precepts) and then when the mind is conquered, like a willing Bride, Force should so behave itself, as noble Husbands use their power: that is, by letting their Wives see the Dignity and prerogative of our Sex (which is the husband's harmless conquest of Peace) continually maintained to hinder Disobedience, rather than rigorously impose Duty: But to such an easy government, neither the People (which are subjects to Kings and States) nor Wives (which are subject to Husbands) can peacefully yield, unless they are first conquered by Virtue; and the Conquests of Virtue be never easy, but where her sources are commanded by Poets. It may be objected that the education of the people's minds (from whence Virtuous manners are derived) by the several kinds of poesy (of which the dramatic hath been in all Ages very successful) is opposite to the received opinion, that the People ought to be continued in ignorance; a maxim sounding like the little subtlety of one that is a statesman only by Birth or Beard, and merits not his place by much thinking; For Ignorance is rude, censorious, jealous, obstinate, and proud; these being exactly the ingredients of which Disobedience is made; and Obedience proceeds from ample consideration, of which knowledge consists; and knowledge will soon put into one Scale the weight of oppression, and in the other, the heavy burden which Disobedience lays on us in the effects of civil war: and then even Tyranny will seem much lighter, when the hand of Supreme Power binds up our Load, and lays it artfully on us, than Disobedience (the Parent of Con●usion) when we all load one another; in which every one irregularly increases his fellows burden, to lessen his own. Others may object that poesy on our Stago, or the heroic in music (for so the latter was anciently used) is prejudicial to a State; as begetting Levity, and giving the People too great a diversion by pleasure and mirth. To these (if they be worthy of Satisfaction) I reply; That whoever in Government endeavours to make the People serious and grave, (which are attributes that may become the people's Representatives, but not the People) doth practise a new way to enlarge the State, by making every Subject a statesman: and he that means to govern so mournfully (as it were, without any music in his Dominion) must lay but light burdens on his Subjects; or else he wants the ordinary wisdom of those, who to their Beasts that are much loaden whistle all the day to encourage their Travail. For that supreme power which expects a firm obedience in those, who are not used to rejoicing, but live sadly, as if they were still preparing for the funeral of peace, hath little skill in contriving the lastingness of Government, which is the principal work of Art; And less hath that Power considered Nature; as if such new austerity did seem to tax, even her, for want of gravity in bringing in the Spring so merrily with a musical variety of Birds; And such sullen power doth forget that battles (the most solemn and serious business of Death) are begun with Trumpets and Fifes; and anciently were continued with more diversity of music. And that the Grecian Laws (Laws being the gravest endeavour of human counsels, for the ease of Life) were long before the days of Ly●urgus (to make them more pleasant to memory) published in Verse: And that the wise Athenians (dividing into Three parts the public revenue) expended one in plays and shows, to divert the people from meeting to consult of their Rulers merit, and the defects of Government: And that the Romans had not so long continued their Empire, but for the same diver●ions, at a vaster charge. Again, it may be objected, that the precepts of Christian Religion are sufficient towards our regulation, by appointment of manners; and towards the ease of Life, by imposing obedience; so that the moral assistance of poesy, is but vainly intruded. To this I may answer, that as no man should suspect the sufficiency of Religion by its unsuccessfulness, so if the unsuccessfulness be confessed, we shall as little disparage Religion, by bringing in more aids when 'tis in action, as a general dishonours himself by endeavouring with more of his own Forces to make sure an attempt that hath a while miscarried: For poesy, which (like contracted Essences seems the utmost strength and activity of Nature) is as all good Arts, ●ubservient to Religion; all marching under the same Banner, though of less discipline and esteem. And as poesy is the best expositor of Nature (Nature being mysterious to such as use not to consider) so Nature is the best Interpreter of God; and more cannot be said of Religion. And when the Judges of Religion (which are the Chiefs of the Church) neglect the help of Moralists in reforming the People (and Poets are of all Moralists the most useful) they give a sentence against the Law of Nature: For Nature performs all things by correspondent aids and harmony. And 'tis injurious not to think Poets the most useful Moralists; for as poesy is adorned and sublimed by music, which makes it more pleasant and acceptable; so morality is sweetened and made more amiable by poesy. And the Austerity of some Divines may be the cause why Religion hath not more prevailed upon the manners of Men: for great doctors should rather comply with things that please (as the wise Apostle did with Ceremonies) then lose a Proselyte. And even Honour (taught by moral Philosophers, but more delightfully infused by Poets) will appear (notwithstanding the sad severity of some later Divines) no unsafe Guide towards Piety; for it is as wary and nice as Conscience, though more cheerful and courageous. And however Honour be more pleasing to flesh and blood, because in this World it finds applause; yet 'tis not so mercenary as Piety: for Piety (being of all her expectations inwardly assured) expects a reward in Heaven; to which all earthly payments compared, are but Shadows, and Sand. And it appears that poesy hath for its natural prevailings over the Understandings of Men (sometimes making her conquests with easy plainness, like native country beauty) been very successful in the most grave, and important occasions that the necessities of States or mankind have produced. For it may be said that Demosthenes saved the Athenians by the Fable or Parable of the dogs and Wolves, in answer to King Philip's proposition; And that Menenius Agrippa saved the Senate, if not Rome, by that of the Belly and the Hands: and that even our Saviour was pleased (as the most prevalent way of Doctrine) wholly to use such kind of Parables in his converting, or saving of Souls; it being written, Without a Parable spoke he not to them. And had not the learned Apostle thought the wisdom of Poets worthy his remembrance, and instructive, not only to Heathens, but to Christians; he had not cited Epimenides to the Cretans, as well as Aratus to the Athenians. I cannot also be ignorant, that divers (whose conscientious Melancholy amazes and discourages others' Devotion) will accuse Poets as the Admirers of Beauty, and inventors, or Provokers of that which by way of aspersion they call Love. But such, in their first accusation seem to look carelessly and unthankfully upon the wonderful works of God; or else through low education, or age, become incompetent Judges of what is the chief of his Works upon Earth. And Poets, when they praise Beauty, are at least as lawfully thankful to God, as when they praise Seas, Woods, Rivers, or any other parts that make up a prospect of the World. Nor can it be imagined but that Poets in praising them, praise wholly the Maker; and so in praising Beauty: For that woman who believes she is praised when her Beauty is commended, may as well suppose that Poets think she create herself: And he that praises the inward Beauty of Women, which is their Virtue, doth more perform his duty then before: for our envious silence in not approving, and so encouraging what is good, is the cause that Vice is more in fashion and countenance then Virtue. But when Poets praise that which is not Beauty, or the Mind which is not virtuous, they err through their mistake or by flattery; and flattery is a crime so much more prosperous in others who are Companions to greatness, that it may be held in Poets rather kindness than Design. They who accuse Poets as Provokers of Love, are Enemies to Nature; and all affronts to Nature are offences to God, as insolences to all subordinate Officers of the Crown are rudenesses to the King. Love (in the most obnoxious interpretation) is Nature's Preparative to her greatest Work, which is the making of Life. And since the severest Divines of these later times have not been ashamed publicly to command and define the most secret duties, and entertainments of Love in the Married; why should not Poets civilly endeavour to make a friendship between the Guests before they meet, by teaching them to dignify each other with the utmost of estimation? And Marriage in Mankind were as rude and unprepared as the hasty elections of other Creatures, but for acquaintance and conversation before it: and that must be an acquaintance of Minds, not of Bodies; and of the Mind, poesy is the most natural and delightful Interpreter. When neither Religion (which is our Art towards God) nor Nature (which is God's first Law to Man, though by Man least studied) nor when Reason (which is Nature, and made Art by Experience) can by the Enemies of poesy be sufficiently urged against it; then some (whose frowardness will not let them quit an evil cause) plead written Authority. And though such authority be a Weapon, that even in the war of Religion, distressed Disputers take up, as their last shift; yet here we would protest against it, but that we find it makes a false defence, and leaves the Enemy more open. This authority (which is but single too) is from Plato; and him some have maliciously quoted; as if in his feigned commonwealth he had banished all Poets. But Plato says nothing against Poets in general; and in his particular quarrel (which is to Homer and Hesiod) only condemns such errors as we mentioned in the beginning of this Preface, when we looked upon the ancients. And those errors consist in their abasing Religion, by representing the Gods in evil proportion, and their Heroes with as unequal Characters; and so brought Vices into fashion, by intermixing them with the Virtues of great Persons. Yet even during this divine anger of Plato, he concludes not against poesy, but the Poems than most in request: for these be the words of his Law. If any Man (having ability to imitate what he pleases) imitate in his Poems both good and evil, let him be reverenced, as a sacred admirable, and pleasant Person; but be it likewise known, he must have no place in our commonwealth. And yet before his banishment, he allows him, the honour of a Diadem, and sweet Odours to anoint his Head: and afterwards says, Let us make use of more profitable, though more severe, and less pleasant Poets, who can imitate that which is for the honour and benefit of the commonwealth. But those who make use of this just indignation of Plato to the unjust scandal of poesy, have the common craft of false Witnesses, enlarging every circumstance, when it may hurt, and concealing all things that may defend him they oppose. For they will not remember how much the Scholar of Plato (who like an absolute Monarch over Arts, hath almost silenced his Master throughout the Schools of Europe) labours to make poesy universally current, by giving Laws to the Science: Nor will they take notice in what dignity it continued whilst the Greeks kept their Dominion or Language; and how much the Romans cherished even the public repetition of Verses Nor will they vouchsafe to observe (though Juvenal take care to record it) how gladly all Rome (during that exercise) ran to the voice of Statius. Thus having taken measure (though hastily) of the extent of those great Professions that in Government contribute to the necessities, ease, and lawful pleasures of Men; and finding poesy as useful now, as the ancients found it towards perfection and happiness; I will, Sir, (Unless with these two Books you return me a discouragement) cheerfully proceed: and though a little time would perfect the Third, and make it fit for the press; I am resolved rarather to hazard the inconvenience which expectation breeds (for divers with no ill satisfaction have had a taste of GONDIBERT) then endure that violent envy which assaults all Writers whilst they live; though their Papers be but filled with very negligent and ordinary thoughts: and therefore I delay the publication of any part of the Poem, till I can send it you from America, whither I now speedily prepare; having the folly to hope, that when I am in another World (though not in the common sense of dying) I shall find my Readers even the Poets of the present Age as temperate and benign as we are all to the Dead, whose remote excellence cannot hinder our reputation. And now, Sir, to end with the Allegory which I have so long continued, I shall (after all my busy vanity in showing and describing my new Building) with great quietness (being almost as weary as yourself) b●ing you to the backdoor, that you may make no review, but in my absence; and steal hastily from you, as one who is ashamed of all the trouble you have received from, SIR, Your most humble, and most affectionate Servant, WIL. D'AVENANT. From the Lowre in Paris, January 2. 1650. THE answer OF Mr. HOBBS TO Sr. WILLIAM D'AVENANT'S PREFACE before GONDIBERT. SIR, IF to commend your Poem, I should only say (in general terms) that in the choice of your Argument, the disposition of the parts, the maintenance of the Characters of your Persons, the Dignity and Vigour of your Expression you have performed all the parts of various experience, ready memory, clear judgement, swift and well governed fancy, though it were enough for the truth, it were too little for the weight and credit of my testimony. For I lie open to two Exceptions, one of an incompetent, the other of a corrupted witness. Incompetent, because I am not a Poet; and corrupted with the Honour done me by your PREFACE. The former obliges me to say something (by the way) of the Nature and differences of poesy. As Philosophers have divided the Universe (their subject) into three Regions, Celestial, aerial, and terrestrial; so the Poets (whose work it is by imitating human life, in delightful and measured lines, to avert men from vice, and incline them to virtuous and honourable actions) have lodged themselves in the three Regions of Mankind, Court, City, and country correspondent in some proportion, to those three Regions of the World. For there is in Princes and men of conspicuous power (Anciently called Heroes) a lustre and influence upon the rest of men, resembling that of the Heavens; and an insincereness, inconstancy, and troublesome humour of those that dwell in populous Cities, like the mobility, blustering, and impurity of the Air; and a plainness, and (though dull) yet a nutritive faculty in rural people, that endures a comparison with the Earth they labour. From hence have proceeded three sorts of poesy; heroic, Scommatick, and pastoral. Every one of these is distinguished again in the manner of Representation, which sometimes is Narrative, wherein the Poet himself relateth, and sometimes dramatic, as when the persons are every one adorned and brought upon the Theatre, to speak and act their own parts. There is therefore neither more nor less than six sorts of poesy. For the heroic Poem narrative (such as is yours) is called an epic poem; The heroic poem dramatic, is Tragedy. The Scommatick Narrative, is satire; dramatic is Comedy. The pastoral narrative, is called simply pastoral (Anciently Bucolick) the same dramatic, pastoral comedy. The Figure therefore of an epic Poem, and of a Tragedy, aught to be the same, for they differ no more but in that they are pronounced by one, or many persons. Which I insert to justify the figure of yours, consisting of five books divided into Songs or Cantoes, as five Acts divided into Scenes has ever been the approved figure of a Tragedy. They that take for poesy whatsoever is writ in Verse, will think this division imperfect, and call in Sonnets, epigrams, Eclogues, and the like pieces (which are but essays, and parts of an entire poem) and reckon Empedocles, and Lucretius (Natural Philosophers) for Poets, and the moral precepts of Phocylides, Theognis, and the Quatrains of Pybrach, and the History of Lucan, and others of that kind amongst Poems; bestowing on such Writers for honour the name of Poets, rather than of Historians or Philosophers. But the subject of a Poem is the manners of men, not natural causes; manners presented, not dictated; and manners feigned (as the name of poesy imports) not found in men. They that give entrance to Fictions writ in prose, err not so much, but they err. For poesy requireth delightfulness, not only of fiction, but of stile; in which if prose contend with Verse, it is with disadvantage (as it were) on foot, against the strength and wings of Pegasus. For Verse amongst the Greeks was appropriated anciently to the service of their Gods and was the Holy stile; the stile of the Oracles; the stile of the Laws; and the stile of men that publicly recommended to their Gods, the vows and thanks of the people; which was done in their holy Songs called Hymns; and the Composers of them were called Prophets and Priests before the name of Poet was known. When afterwards the majesty of that stile was observed, the Poets chose it as best becoming their high invention. And for the Antiquity of Verse it is greater than the Antiquity of Letters. For it is certain Cadmus was the first that (from Phoenicia, a country that neighboureth Judea) brought the use of Letters into Greece. But the service of the Gods, and the laws (which by measured Sounds were easily committed to the memory) had been long time in use, before the arrival of Cadmus there. There is besides the grace of stile, another cause why the ancient Poets chose to write in measured language, which is this. Their Poems were made at first with intention to have them sung, as well Epique, as dramatic (which custom hath been long time laid aside, but began to be revived in part, of late years in Italy) and could not be made commensurable to the voice or instruments, in Prose; the ways and motions whereof are so uncertain and undistinguished, (like the way and motion of a Ship in the Sea) as not only to discompose the best Composers, but also to disappoint sometimes the most attentive Reader, and put him to hunt counter for the sense. It was therefore necessary for Poets in those times, to write in Verse. The verse which the Greeks, and Latins (considering the nature of their own languages) found by experience most grave, and for an Epique Poem most decent, was their Hexameter; a Verse limited, not only in the length of the line, but also in the quantity of the syllables. In stead of which we use the line of ten syllables, recompensing the neglect of their quantity, with the diligence of rhyme. And this measure is so proper for an heroic Poem, as without some loss of gravity and dignity, it was never changed. A longer is not far from ill prose, and a shorter, is a kind of whisking (you know) like the unlacing, rather than the singing of a Muse. In an epigram or a Sonnet, a man may vary his measures, and seek glory from a needless difficulty, as he that contrived verses into the forms of an Organ, a Hatchet, an Egg, an Altar, and a pair of Wings; but in so great and noble a work as is an epic poem, for a man to obstruct his own way with unprofitable difficulties, is great imprudence. So likewise to choose a needless and difficult correspondence of rhyme, is but a difficult toy, and forces a man sometimes for the stopping of a chink to say somewhat he did never think; I cannot therefore but very much approve your Stanza, wherein the syllables in every verse are ten, and the rhyme, Alternate. For the choice of your subject you have sufficiently justified yourself in your Preface. But because I have observed in Virgil, that the Honour done to AEneas and his companions, has so bright a reflection upon Augustus Cesar, and other great Romans of that time, as a man may suspect him not constantly possessed with the noble spirit of those his Heroes, and believe you are not acquainted with any great man of the Race of Gondibert. I add to your Justification the purity of your purpose, in having no other motive of your labour, but to adorn virtue, and procure her Lovers; than which there cannot be a worthier design & more becoming noble poesy. In that you make so small account of the example of almost all the approved Poets, ancient and modern, who thought fit in the beginning, and sometimes also in the progress of their poems, to invoke a Muse, or some other deity, that should dictate to them, or assist them in their writings, they that take not the laws of Art, from any reason of their own, but from the fashion of precedent times, will perhaps accuse your singularity. For my part, I neither subscribe to their accusation, nor yet condem●e that Heathen custom, otherwise then as necessary to their false Religion. For their Poets were their Divines; had the name of Prophets; Exercised amongst the people a kind of spiritual Authority; would be thought to speak by a Divine spirit; have their works which they writ in Verse (the Divine stile) pass for the word of God, and not of man; and to be hearkened to with reverence. Do not our Divines (excepting the stile) do the same, and by us that are of the same Religion cannot justly be reprehended for it? Besides, in the use of the spiritual calling of Divines, there is danger sometimes to be feared, from want of skill, such as is reported of unskilful Conjurers, that mistaking the rites and ceremonious points of their art, call up such spirits, as they cannot at their pleasure allay again; by whom storms are raised, that overthrow buildings, and are the cause of miserable wracks at Sea. Unskilful Divines do oftentimes the like, For when they call unseasonably for Zeal, there appears a spirit of Cruelty; and by the like error instead of Truth they raise Discord; instead of wisdom, Fraud; instead of Reformation, Tumult; and controversy instead of Religion. Whereas in the Heathen Poets, at least in those whose works have lasted to the time we are in, there are none of those indiscretions to be found, that tended to subversion or disturbance of the commonwealths wherein they lived. But why a Christian should think it an ornament to his Poem, either to profane the true God, or invoke a false one, I can imagine no cause, but a reasonless imitation of custom; of a foolish custom; by which a man, enabled to speak wisely from the principles of nature, and his own meditation, loves rather to be thought to speak by inspiration, like a bagpipe. Time and education beget experience; Experience begets Memory; Memory begets Judgement and Fancy; Judgement begets the strength and structure, and Fancy begets the ornaments of a Poem. The ancients therefore fabled not absurdly, in making memory the mother of the Muses. For memory is the World (though not really, yet so as in a looking-glass) in which the Judgement (the severer Sister) busieth herself in a grave and rigid examination of all the parts of Nature, and in registering by Letters, their order, causes, uses, differences and resemblances; Whereby the Fancy, when any work of Art is to be performed, findeth her materials at hand and prepared for use, and needs no more than a swift motion over them, that what she wants, and is there to be had, may not lie too long unespied. So that when she seemeth to fly from one Indies to the other, and from Heaven to Earth, and to penetrate into the hardest matter, and obscurest places, into the future, and into herself, and all this in a point of time; the voyage is not very great, herself being all she seeks; and her wonderful celerity, consisteth not so much in motion, as in copious Imagery discreetly ordered, and perfectly registered in the memory; which most men under the name of Philosophy have a glimpse of, and is pretended to by many that grossly mistaking her embrace contention in her place. But so far forth as the Fancy of man has traced the ways of true Philosophy, so far it hath produced very marvellous effects to the benefit of mankind. All that is beautiful or defensible in building; or mervellous in Engines and Instruments of motion; Whatsoever commodity men receive from the observation of the Heavens, from the description of the Earth, from the account of Time, from walking on the Seas; and whatsoever distinguisheth the civility of Europe, from the Barbarity of the American savages, is the workmanship of Fancy, but guided by the precepts of true Philosophy. But where these precepts fail, as they have hitherto failed in the doctrine of moral virtue, there the Architect (Fancy) must take the philosopher's part upon herself. He therefore that undertakes an heroic Poem (which is to exhibit a venerable and amiable Image of heroic virtue) must not only be the Poet, to place and connex, but also the Philosopher, to furnish and square his matter, that is, to make both body and soul, colour and shadow of his Poem out of his own store: which how well you have performed I am now considering. Observing how few the persons be you introduce in the beginning, and how in the course of the actions of these (the number increasing) after several confluences, they run all at last into the two principal streams of your Poem, Gondibert and Oswald, methinks the Fable is not much unlike the Theatre. For so, from several and far distant Sources, do the lesser Brooks of Lombardy, flowing into one another, fall all at last into the two main Rivers, the Po, and the Adice. It hath the same resemblance also with a man's veins, which proceeding from different parts, after the like concourse, insert themselves at last into the two principal veins of the Body. But when I considered that also the actions of men, which singly are inconsiderable, after many conjunctures, grow at last either into one great protecting power, or into two destroying Factions; I could not but approve the structure of your Poem, which ought to be no other than such as an imitation of human life requireth. In the streams themselves I find nothing but settled Valour, clean Honour, calm Counsel, learned Diversion, and pure Love; save only a torrent or two of Ambition, which (though a fault) hath somewhat heroic in it, and therefore must have place in an heroic Poem. To show the Reader in what place he shall find every excellent picture of Virtue you have drawn, is too long. And to show him one, is to prejudice the rest; yet I cannot forbear to point him to the Description of Love in the person of Birtha, in the seventh Canto of the second Book. There hath nothing been said of that subject neither by the ancient nor modern Poets comparable to it. Poets are Painters: I would fain see another Painter draw so true, perfect, and natural a Love to the Life, and make use of nothing but pure lines, without the help of any the least uncomely shadow, as you have done. But let it be read as a piece by itself, for in the almost equal height of the whole, the eminence of parts is Lost. There are some that are not pleased with fiction, unless it be bold not only to exceed the work, but also the possibility of nature: they would have impenetrable Armours, enchanted Castles, invulnerable bodies, Iron men, flying Horses, and a thousand other such things which are easily feigned by them that dare. Against such I defend you (without assenting to those that condemn either Homer or Virgil) by dissenting only from those that think the Beauty of a Poem consisteth in the exorbitancy of the fiction. For as truth is the bound of historical, so the Resemblance of truth is the utmost limit of poetical Liberty. In old time amongst the Heathens, such strange Fictions and Metamorphoses, were not so remote from the Articles of their Faith, as they are now from ours, and therefore we are not so unpleasant. Beyond the actual works of Nature a Poet may now go; but beyond the conceived possibility of Nature, never. I can allow a Geographer to make in the Sea, a fish or a ship, which by the scale of his Map would be two or three hundred miles long, and think it done for ornament, because it is done without the precincts of his undertaking; but when he paints an Elephant so, I presently apprehend it as ignorance, and a plain confession of Terra incognita. As the description of great Men, and great Actions is the constant design of a Poet; so the Descriptions of worthy circumstances are necessary accessions to a Poem, and being well performed, are the Jewels and most precious ornaments of poesy. Such in Virgil, are the Funeral games of Anchises. The Duel of AEneas and Turnus, &c. And such in yours, are The Hunting. The battle. The City Mourning. The Funeral▪ the House of Astragon. The Library. And the Temples. Equal to his, or those of Homer whom he imitated. There remains now no more to be considered but the Expression, in which consisteth the countenance and colour of a beautiful Muse; and is given her by the Poet out of his own provision, or is borrowed from others. That which he hath of his own, is nothing but experience and knowledge of Nature, and specially human Nature; and is the true and natural Colour. But that which is taken out of Books (the ordinary boxes of counterfeit Complexion) shows well or ill, as it hath more or less resemblance with the natural▪ and are not to be used (without examination) unadvisedly. For in him that professes the imitation of Nature, (as all Poets do) what greater fault can there be, then to bewray an ignorance of nature in his Poem; especially having a liberty allowed him, if he meet with any thing he cannot master, to leave it out? That which giveth a Poem the true and natural Colour, consisteth in two things, which are, To know well; that is, to have images of nature in the memory distinct and clear; and To know much. A sign of the first is perspicuity, property, and decency; which delight all sorts of men, either by instructing the ignorant, or soothing the learned in their knowledge: A sign of the later is novelty of expression, and pleaseth by excitation of the mind; for novelty causeth a dmiration; and admiration, curiosity; which is a delightful appetite of knowledge. There be so many words in use at this day in the English tongue, that, though of magnific sound, yet (like the windy blisters of a troubled water) have no sense at all; and so many others that lose their meaning by being ill coupled, that it is a hard matter to avoid them; for having been obtruded upon Youth in the Schools (by such as make it, I think, their business there, as 'tis expressed by the best Poet) With terms to charm the weak and pose the wise. Gondib. 1 r. Cant. 5. they grow up with them, and gaining reputation with the ignorant, are not easily shaken off. To this palpable darkness, I may also add the ambitious obscurity of expressing more than is perfectly conceived; or perfect conception in fewer words than it requires. Which Expressions, though they have had the honour to be called strong lines, are indeed no better than Riddles, and not only to the Reader, but also (after a little time) to the Writer himself, dark and troublesome. To the property of Expression, I refer that clearness of memory, by which a Poet when he hath once introduced any person whatsoever, speaking in his Poem, maintaineth in him, to the end, the same Character he gave to him in the beginning. The variation whereof, is a change of pace that argues the Poet tired. Of the Indecencies of an heroic Poem, the most remarkable are those that show disproportion either between the persons and their actions, or between the manners of the Poet and the Poem. Of the first kind, is the uncomeliness of representing in great persons the inhuman vice of Cruelty, or the sordid vices of Lust and drunkenness. To such parts as those, the ancient approved Poets thought it fit to suborn, not the persons of men, but of monsters and beastly Giants, such as Polyphemus, Cacus, and the Centaurs. For it is supposed, a Muse, when she is invoked to sing a song of that nature, should maidenly advise the Poet to set such persons to sing their own vices upon the stage; for it is not so unseemly in a Tragedy. Of the same kind it is to represent scurrility, or any action or language that moveth much laughter. The delight of an Epique Poem consisteth not in mirth but in admiration. Mirth and laughter is proper to Comedy and satire. Great persons that have their minds employed on great designs have not leisure enough to laugh, and are pleased with the contemplation of their own power and virtues, so as they need not the infirmities and vices of other men to recommend themselves to their own favour by comparison, as all men do when they laugh. Of the second kind, where the disproportion is between the Poet, and the persons of his Poem, one is in the Dialect of the inferior sort of People which is always different from the language of the Court. Another is to derive the Illustration of any thing, from such metaphors or comparisons as cannot come into men's thoughts, but by mean conversation, and experience of humble or evil Arts, which the persons of an epic Poem cannot be thought acquainted with. From Knowing much, proceedeth the admirable variety and novelty of metaphors and similitudes, which are not possibly to be lighted on in the compass of a narrow knowledge. And the want whereof compelleth a Writer to Expressions that are either defaced by time, or sullied with vulgar or long use. For the phrases of poesy, as the airs of music, with often hearing become insipid; the Reader having no more sense of their force, than our Flesh is sensible of the bones that sustain it. As the sense we have of bodies, consisteth in change and variety of impression, so also does the sense of language in the variety and changeable use of words. I mean not in the affectation of words newly brought home from travel, but in new (and withal, significant) translation to our purposes, of those that be already received, and in far fetched (but withal, apt, instructive, and comely) sumilitudes. Having thus (I hope) avoided the first Exception, against the Incompetency of my Judgement: I am but little moved with the second; which is, of being bribed by the honour you have done me, by attributing in your Preface somewhat to my Judgement. For I have used your Judgement no loss in many things of mine, which coming to light will thereby appear the better. And so you have your bribe again. Having thus made way for the admission of my Testimony, I give it briefly thus; I never yet saw Poem that had so much shape of Art, health of Morality, and vigour and beauty of Expression, as this of yours. And but for the clamour of the multitude that hide their Envy of the present, under a Reverence of Antiquity, I should say further, that it would last as long as either the AEneid or Iliad, but for one Disadvantage. And the Disadvantage is this: The languages of the Greeks and Romans (by their Colonies and Conquest) have put off flesh and blood, and are become immutable, which none of the Modern Tongues are like to be. I honour Antiquity; but, that which is commonly called old time, is young time. The glory of Antiquity is due, not to the Dead, but to the Aged. And now, whilst I think on't, give me leave with a short discord to sweeten the Harmony of the approaching close. I have nothing to object against your Poem; but, dissent only from something in your Preface, sounding to the prejudice of Age. 'Tis commonly said, that old Age is a return to childhood. Which methinks you insist on so long, as if you desired it should be believed. That's the Note I mean to shake a little. That saying, meant only of the weakness of body, was wrested to the weakness of mind, by froward children, weary of the controlment of their parents, masters, and other admonitors. Secondly, the dotage and childishness they ascribe to Age, is never the effect of Time, but sometimes of the excesses of Youth, and not a returning to, but a continual stay with childhood. For they that wanting the curiosity of furnishing their memories with the rarities of nature in their Youth, and pass their time in making provision only for their ease and sensual delight, are Children still, at what years soever; as they that coming into a populous city, never go out of their own inn, are strangers still, how long soever they have been there. Thirdly, there is no reason for any man to think himself wiser to day then yesterday, which doth not equally convince he shall be wiser to morrow then to day. Fourthly, you will be forced to change your opinion hereafter when you are old; and in the mean time you discredit all I have said before in your commendation, because I am old already. But no more of this. I believe (Sir) you have seen a curious kind of perspective, where, he that looks through a short hollow pipe, upon a picture containing diverse figures, sees none of those that are there painted, but some one person made up of their parts, conveyed to the eye by the artificial cutting of a glass. I find in my imagination an effect not unlike it from your Poem. The virtues you distribute there amongst so many noble Persons represent (in the reading) the image but of one man's virtue to my fancy, which is your own; and that so deeply imprinted, as to stay for ever there, and govern all the rest of my thoughts and affections in the way of honouring and serving you, to the utmost of my power, that am SIR, Your most humble, and obedient Servant, THOMAS HOBBS. January 10. 1650. FINIS.