to make it yield more profit. This has been the cafe with Shakespeare, Fletcher, Jonfon, and many others; part of whofe poems I fhould take the boldness to prune and lop away, if the care of replanting them in print did belong to me: neither would 1 make any fcruple to cut off from fome the unneceffary young fuckers, and from others the old withered branches; for a great wit is no more tied to live in a vast volume, than in a gigantic body; on the contrary, it is commonly more vigorous, the lefs fpace it animates. And, as Statius fays of little Tydeus *,

I am not ignorant, that, by faying this of others, I expofe myself to fome raillery, for not ufing the fame fevere difcretion in my own cafe, where it concerns me nearer : but though I publish here more than in ftrict wifdom I ought to have done, yet I have fuppreft and caft away more than I publish; and, for the eafe of myfelf and others, have loft, I believe too, more than both. And upon these confiderations 1 have been perfuaded to overcome all the juft repugnances of my own modefty, and to produce these poems to the light and view of the world; not as a thing that I approved of in itself, but as a lefs evil, which I chose rather than to ftay till it were done for me by fomebody elfe, either furreptitiously before, or avowedly after, my death: and this will be the more excufable, when the reader fhall know in what refpects he may look upon me as a dead, or at least a dying perfon, and upon my Mufe in this action, as appearing, like the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and affifting at her own funeral.

For, to make my felf abfolutely dead in a poetical capacity, my refolution at present is, never to exercise any more that faculty. It is, I confefs, but feldom feen that the poet dies before the man; for, when we once fall in love with that bewitching art, we do not use to court it as a mistress, but marry it as a wife, and take it for better or worse, as an infeparable companion of our whole life. But as the marriages of infants do but rarely profper, fo no man ought to wonder at the diminution or decay of my affection to pocfy; to which I had contracted myself fo much under age, and fo much to my own prejudice in regard of thofe more profitable matches, which I might have made among the richer fciences. As for the portion which this brings of fame, it is an eftate (if it be any, for men are not oftener deceived in their hopes of widows, than in their opinion of, " Exegi monumentum ære perennius-") that hardly ever comes in whilft we are living to enjoy it, but is a fantastical kind of reverfion to our own felves: neither ought any man to envy poets this pofthumous and imaginary happiness, fince they find commonly fo little in prefent, that it may be truly applied to them, which St. Paul fpeaks of the firft Chriftians, " If their reward be in this life, they are "of all men the moft miferable."

And, if in quiet and flourishing times they meet with fo fmall encouragement, what are they to expect in rough and troubled ones? If wit be fuch a plant, that it fcarce receives heat enough to preferve it alive even in the fummer of our cold climate, how can it choose but wither in a long and a fharp winter? A warlike, various, and a tragical age is beft to write of, but worft to write in. And I may, though in a very unequal proportion, affume that to myself, which was fpoken by Tully to a much better perfon, upon occafion of the civil wars and revolutions in his time: "Sed in te intuens, Brute, doleo: cujus in adolefcentiam, per medias laudes, quadrigis vehentem, tranf"verfa incurrit mifera fortuna reipublicæ."

Neither is the prefent conftitution of my mind more proper than that of the times for this exercife, or rather divertifment. There is nothing that requires fo much ferenity and cheerfulness of fpirit; it muft not be either overwhelmed with the cares of life, 'or overcast with the clouds of melancholy and forrow, or fhaken and disturbed by the ftorms of injurious fortune; it muft, like the halcyon, have fair weather to breed in. The foul must be filled with bright and delightful ideas, when it undertakes to communicate delight to others; which is the main end of poefy. One may fee through † Cic. de Clar. Orator. § 231.

Stat. Theb. lib. i. 416.

the style of Ovid de Trift. the humbled and dejected condition of fpirit with which he wrote it; there fcarce remains any footstep of that genius,

"-quem nec Jovis ira, nec ignes *, &c."

The cold of the country had trucken through all his faculties, and benumbed the very feet of his verfes. He is himself, methinks, like one of the ftories of his own Metamorphofis; and, though there remain fome weak refemblances of Ovid at Rome, it is but, as he says of Niobet,

"In vultu color eft fine fanguine: lumina moftis

"Stant immota genis: nihil eft in imagine vivi.

"Flet tamen-"

The truth is, for a man to write well, it is neceffary to be in good humour; neither is wit lefs eclipfed with the unquietnefs of mind, than beauty with the indifpofition of body. So that it is almost as hard a thing to be a poet in despite of fortune, as it is in despite of nature. For my own part, neither my obligations to the Mufes, nor expectations from them, are fo great, as that I fhould fuffer myself on no confiderations to be divorced, or that I fhould fay like Horace ‡,

Quifquis erat vitæ, fcribam, color.”
I fhall rather ufe his words in another place I'

"Vixi Camenis nuper idoneus,
"Et militavi non fine gloriâ :

"Nunc arma, defunctúmque bello
"Barbiton hic paries habebit."

And this refolution of mine does the more befit me, because my defire has been for fome years paft (though the execution has been accidentally diverted) and does itill vehemently continue, to retire myfelf to fome of our American plantations, not to feek for gold, or enrich myself with the traffic of those parts (which is the end of moft men that travel thither; fo that of these Indies it is truer than it was of the former,

66

Impiger extremos currit mercator ad Indos,

"Per mare pauperiem fugiens-)”

but to forfake this world for ever, with all the vanities and vexations of it, and to bury myself there in fome obfcure retreat (but not without the confolation of letters and philofophy)

"Oblitúfque meorum, oblivifcendus & illis— q”

as my former author fpeaks too, who has enticed me here, I know not how, into the pedantry of this heap of Latin fentences. And I think Dr. Donne's Sundyal in a grave As this is not more ufelefs and ridiculous, than poetry would be in that retirement. therefore is in a true fenfe a kind of death to the Mufes, and a real literal quitting of this world; fo, methinks, I may make a jult claim to the undoubted privilege of deceased poets, which is, to be read with more favour than the living;

"Tanti eft ut placeam tibi, perire **:"

Having been forced, for my own neceffary juflification, to trouble the reader with this long difcourfe of the reafons why I trouble him alfo with all the reft of the book; I fhall only add fomewhat concerning the feveral parts of it, and fome other pieces, which I have thought fit to reject in this publication: as, firft, all thofe which I wrote at school, from the age of ten years, till after fifteen; for even fo far backward there remain yet fome traces of me in the little footsteps of a child; which, though they were then looked upon as commendable extravagancies in a boy (men fetting a value upon any kind of fruit before the ufual feafon of it) yet I would be loth to be bound now to read them all over myself; and therefore fhould do ill to expect that patience from others. Befides, they have already past through feveral editions, which is a Hor. 2 Sat. i. 6o. 3 Carm. Ode xxvi. " Vir' Martial. lib viii. ep. 69.

Metam. 1. xv. 871. Metam. 1. vi. 304. puellis," &c. Hor, 1 Ep. i. 45. Hor. 1 Ep. xi.9. A 2

longer life than ufes to be enjoyed by infants that are born before the ordinary terms. They had the good fortune then to find the world fo indulgent (for, confidering the time of their production, who could be fo hard-hearted to be fevere?) that I fcarce yet apprehend fo much to be cenfured for them, as for not having made advances afterwards pportionable to the speed of my fetting out; and am obliged too in a manner by dif

tion to conceal and suppress them, as promises and inftruments under my own hand, whereby I ftood engaged for more than I have been able to perform; in which truly if I have failed, I have the real excufe of the honefteft fort of bankrupts, which is, to have been made unfolvable not so much by their own negligence and ill-husbandry, as by fome notorious accidents and public difafters. In the next place, I have caft away all fuch pieces as I wrote during the time of the late troubles, with any relation to the differences that caufed them; as, among others, three books of the civil war itself, reaching as far as the firft battle of Newbury, where the fucceeding misfortunes of the party ftopt the work.

As for the enfuing book, it confifts of four parts. The first is a Mifcellany of feveral fubjects, and fome of them made when I was very young, which it is perhaps fuperfluous to tell the reader: I know not by what chance I have kept copies of them; for they are but a very few in comparison of thofe which I have loft; and I think they have no extraordinary virtue in them, to deferve more care in prefervation, than was beflowed upon their brethren; for which I am fo little concerned, that I am afhamed of the arrogancy of the word, when I faid I had loft them.

The fecond, is called, "The Miltrefs," or "Love-Verses ;" for fo it is, that poets are fcarce thought freemen of their company, without paying fome duties, and obliging themselves to be true to love. Sooner or later they muft all pafs through that trial, like fome Mahometan monks, that are bound by their order, once at least in their life, to make a pilgrimage to Mecca:

"In furias ignemque ruunt; amor omnibus idem †.”

But we must not always make a judgment of their manners from their writings of this kind; as the Romanifts uncharitably do of Beza, for a few lafcivious fonnets compofed by him in his youth. It is not in this fenfe that poefy is faid to be a kind of painting; it is not the picture of the poet, but of things and perfons imagined by him. He may be in his own practice and difpofition a philofopher, nay, a Stoic, and yet speak fometimes with the foftnefs of an amorous Sappho,

-ferat & rubus afper amomum.‡"

He profeffes too much the ufe of fables (though without the malice of deceiving) to have his teftimony taken even against himfelf. Neither would I here be mifunderstood, as if I affected fo much gravity as to be ashamed to be thought really in love. On the contrary, I cannot have a good opinion of any man, who is not at leaft capable of being fo. But I fpeak it to excufe fome expreffions (if fuch there be) which may happen to offend the feverity of fupercilious readers: for much excefs is to be allowed in love, and even more in poetry; fo we avoid the two unpardonable vices in both, which are obscenity and profanenefs, of which, I am fure, if my words be ever guilty, they have ill reprefented my thoughts and inteptions. And if, notwithstanding all this, the lightnefs of the matter here difpleafe any body, he may find wherewithal to content his more ferious inclinations in the weight and height of the enfuing arguments.

For, as for the "Pindaric Odes" (which is the third part), I am in great doubt whether they will be understood by most readers; nay, even by very many who are well enough acquainted with the common roads and ordinary tracts of poely. They either are, or at least were meant to be, of that kind of ftyle which Dion. Halicarnaffeus calls MesaλuQuè; xal Hd μerà devóтntos, and which he attributes to Alceus. The digreffions are many, and fudden, and fometimes long, according to the fashion of

In the prefent collection, there are five parts; the firft of which contains the juvenile Poems mentioned in P. vii. Their hiltory may be feen in the prefaces prefixed to them. Virg. Ecl, iii. 89.

Virg. Georg, iii. 244.

all lyriques, and of Pindar above all men living: the figures are unufual and bold, even to temerity, and fuch as I durft not have to do withal in any other kind of poetry: the numbers are various and irregular, and fometimes (efpecially fome of the long ones) feem harsh and uncouth, if the just measures and cadences be not obferved in the pronunciation. So that almost all their fweetnefs and numerofity (which is to be found, if I mistake not, in the rougheft, if rightly repeated) lies in a manner wholly at the mercy of the reader. I have briefly defcribed the nature of these verses, in the Ode intituled, "The Refurrection:" and though the liberty of them may incline a man to believe them eafy to be compofed, yet the undertaker will find it otherwife

I come now to the laft part, which is "Davideis," or an heroical poem of the troubles of David: which I defigned into twelve books; not for the tribes' fake, but after the pattern of our mafter Virgil; and intended to clofe all with that most poetical and excellent elegy of David on the death of Saul and Jonathan: for I had no mind to carry him quite on to his anointing at Hebron, because it is the cuftom of heroic poets (as we fee by the examples of Homer and Virgil, whom we fhould do ill to forfake to imitate others) never to come to the full end of their ftory: but only fo near, that every one may fee it; as men commonly play not out the game, when it is evident that they can win it, but lay down their cards, and take up what they have won. This, I fay, was the whole defign: in which there are many noble and fertile arguments behind; as the barbarous cruelty of Saul to the priests at Nob; the feveral flights and escapes of David, with the manner of his living in the Wilderness; the funeral of Samuel; the love of Abigail; the facking of Ziglag; the lofs and recovery of David's wives from the Amalekites; the witch of Endor; the war with the Philiftines; and the battle of Gilboa all which I meant to interweave, upon feveral occafions, with most of the illuftrious ftories of the Old Testament, and to embellish with the most remarkable antiquities of the Jews, and other nations before or at that age.

But I have had neither leisure hitherto, nor have appetite at prefent, to finish the work, or so much as to revife that part which is done, with that care which I refolved to bestow upon it, and which the dignity of the matter well deferves. For what worthier fubject could have been chofen, among all the treafuries of paft times, than the life of this young prince; who, from fo fall beginnings, through fuch infinite troubles and oppofitions, by fuch miraculous virtues and excellencies, and with fuch incomparable variety of wonderful actions and accidents, became the greatest monarch that ever fat on the most famous throne of the whole earth? Whom fhould a poet more justly feek to honour, than the highest person who ever honoured his profeffion? whom a Chriftian poet, rather than the man after God's own heart, and the man who had that facred pre eminence above all other princes, to be the beft and mightiest of that royal race from whence Chrift himfelf, according to the flesh, difdained not to defcend?

When I confider this, and how many other bright and magnificent fubjects of the like nature the holy Scripture affords and proffers, as it were, to poefy; in the wife managing and illuftrating whereof the glory of God Almighty might be joined with the fingular utility and nobleft delight of mankind; it is not without grief and indignation that I behold that divine fcience employing all her inexhauftible riches of wit and clo. quence either in the wicked and beggarly flattery of great perfons, or the unmaaly idolizing of foolish women, or the wretched affectation of fcurril laughter, or at belt on the confused antiquated dreams of fenfelefs fables and metamorphofes. Amongst all holy and confecrated things, which the devil ever ftole and alienated from the service of the Deity; as altars, temples, facrifices, prayers, and the like; there is none that he fo univerfally, and fa long, ufurpt, as poetry. It is time to recover it out of the tyrant'a hands, and to restore it to the kingdom of God who is the Father of it. It is time to

Hor. A. P. 240.

baptize it in Jordan, for it will never become clean by bathing in the water of Damafcus. There wants methinks, but the converfion of that, and the Jews, for the accomplishment of the kingdom of Chrift. And as men, before their receiving of the faith, do not without fome carnal reluctancies apprehend the bonds and fetters of it, but find it afterwards to be the trueft and greatest liberty: it will fare no otherwise with this art, after the regeneration of it; it will meet with wonderful variety of new, more beautiful, and more delightful objects; neither will it want room, by being confined to heaven.

There is not fo great a lye to be found in any poet, as the vulgar conceit of men, that lying is effential to good poetry. Were there never fo wholesome nourishment to be had (but alas! it breeds nothing but diseases) out of these boafted feafts of love and fables; yet, methinks, the unalterable continuance of the diet should make us nauseate it for it is almost impoffible to ferve up any new dish of that kind. They are all but the cold-meats of the ancients, new-heated, and new fet forth. I do not at all wonder that the old poets made fome rich crops out of thefe grounds; the heart of the foil was not then wrought out with continual tillage: but what can we expect now, who come a gleaning, not after the first reapers, but after the very beggars? Befides, though those mad ftories of the gods and heroes feem in themfelves fo. ridiculous; yet they were then the whole body (or rather chaos) of the theology of those times. They were believed by all, but a few philofophers, and perhaps fome atheists; and ferved to good purpofe among the vulgar (as pitiful things as they are), in ftrengthening the authority of law with the terrors of confcience, and expectation of certain rewards and unavoidable punishments. There was no other religion; and therefore that was better than none at all. But to us, who have no need of them; to us, who deride their folly, and are wearied with their impertinencies; they ought to appear no better arguments for verfe, than thofe of their worthy fucceffors, the knights-errant. What can we imagine more proper for the ornaments of wit or learning in the ftory of Deucalion than in that of Noah? Why will not the actions of Sampfon afford as plentiful matter as the labours of Hercules? Why is not Jeptha's daughter as good a woman as Iphigenia? and the friendship of David and Jonathan more worthy celebration than that of Thefeus and Pirithous? Does not the paffage of Mofes and the Ifraelites into the Holy Land yield incomparably more poetical variety than the voyages of Ulyffes or Æneas? Are the obfolete thread-bare tales of Thebes and Troy half fo ftored with great, heroical, and fupernatural actions (fince verfe will needs find or make such), as the wars of Joshua, of the Judges, of David, and divers others? Can all the transformations of the gods give fuch copious hints to flourish and expatiate on, as the true miracles of Chrift, or of his prophets and apoftles? What do I inftance in thefe few particulars? All the books of the Bible are either already most adinirable and exalted pieces of poefy, or are the best materials in the world for it.

Yet, though they be in themselves fo proper to be made ufe of for this purpose; none but a good artift will know how to do it: neither muft we think to cut and polish diamonds with fo little pains and fkill as we do marble. For, if any man defign to compofe a facred poem, by only turning a ftory of the Scripture, like Mr. Quarles's, or fome other godly matter, like Mr. Heywood of angels, into rhyme; he is so far from elevating of poefy, that he only abafes divinity. In brief, he who can write a prophane poem well, may write a divine one better; but he who can do that but ili, will do this much worfe. The fame fertility of invention; the fame wisdom of difpofition; the fame judgment in obfervance of decencies; the fame luftre and vigour of elocution; the fame modesty and majesty of number; briefly, the fame kind of habit, is required to both only this latter allows better ftuff; and therefore would look more deformedly, ill dreft in it. I am far from affuming to myself to have fulfilled the duty of this weighty undertaking but fure I am, there is nothing yet in our language (nor perhaps in any) that is in any degree anfwerable to the idea that I conceive of it. And I fhall be ambitious of no other fruit from this weak and imperfect attempt of mine, but the opening of a way to the courage and induftry of fome other perfons, who may be better able to perform it thoroughly and fuccessfully.

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