PREFACE.

T has been fo ufual among modern authors to write prefaces, that a man is

I thought rude to his reader, who does not give him the fore-hand

of what he is to expect in the book.

The greatest part of this collection confifts of amorous verfes. Those who are converfant with the writings of the ancients, will obferve a great difference between what they and the moderns have published on this fubject. The occafions upon which the poems of the former are written, are fuch as happen to every man almost that is in love; and the thoughts fuch, as are natural for every man is love to think. The moderns, on the other hand, have fought out for occafions that none meet with but themselves; and fill their verfes with thoughts that are farprizing and glittering, but not tender, paffionate, or natural to a man in love.

To judge which of thefe two are in the right; we ought to confider the end that people propofe in writing love verfes and that I take not to be the getting fame or admiration from the world, but the obtaining the love of their mistress; and the best way I conceive to make her love you, is to convince her that you love her. Now this certainly is not to be done by forced conceits, far-fetched fimilies, and fhining points; but by a true and lively reprefentation of the pains and thoughts attending fuch a paffion.

-Si vis me flere, dolendum eft

"Primum ipfi tibi, tunc tua me infortunia lædent. "

I would as foon believe a widow in great grief for her husband, because I faw her dance a courant about his coffin, as believe a man in love with his mistress for his writing fuch verfes as fome great modern wits have done upon theirs.

I am fatisfied that Catulius, Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid were in love with their miftreffes while they upbraid them, quarrel with them, threaten them, and forfwear them; but I confess I cannot believe Petrarch in love with his, when he writes conceits upon her name, her gloves, and the place of her birth. I know it is natural for a lover, in tranfports of jealousy, to treat his miftrefs with all the violence imaginable; but I cannot think it natural for a man, who is much in love, to amufe himself with fuch trifles as the other. I am pleased with Tibullus, when he fays, he could live in a defart with his miftrefs where never any human footfteps appeared, because I doubt not but he really thinks what he fays: but I confefs I can hardly forbear laughing when Petrarch tells us, he could live without any other fuffenance than his miftrefs's looks. I can very easy believe a man may love a woman fo well as to defire no company but her's; but I can never believe

A man can love a woman fo well as to have no need of meat and drink if he may look upon her. The first is a thought fo natural for a lover, that there is no man really in love, but thinks the fame thing; the other is not the thought of a man in love, but of a man who would impofe upon us with a pretended love (and that indeed very grofsly too) while he had really none at all..

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It would be endlefs to pursue this point; and any man who will but give himself the trouble to compare what the ancients and moderns have faid upon the fame occafions, will foon perceive the advantage the former have over the others. I have chofen to mention Petrarch only, as being by much the moit famous of all the moderns who have written love-verfes and it is, indeed, the great reputation which he has gotten, that has given encouragement to this falfe fort of wit in the world for people, feeing the great credit he had, and has indeed to this day, not only in Italy, but ove: all Europe, have fatisfied themselves with the imitation of him, never enquiring whether the way he took was right or not.

There are no modern writers, perhaps, who have fucceeded better in love-verses than the English; and it is indeed just that the faireft ladies fhould infpire the best poets. Never was there a more copious fancy or greater reach of wit than what appears in Dr. Donne; nothing can be more gallant or genteel than the poems of Mr. Waller; nothing more gay or fprightly than thole of Sir John Suckling; and nothing fuller of variety and learning than Mr. Cowley's. However, it may be obferved, that among all thefe, that foftnefs, tenderness, and violence of paffion, which the ancients thought moft proper for love-verses, is wanting and at the fame time that we must allow Dr. Donne to have been a very great wit; Mr. Waller a very gallant writer; Sir John Suckling a very gay one; and Mr. Cowley a great genius; yet methinks I can hardly fancy any one of them to have been a very great lover. And it grieves me that the ancients, who could never have handfomer women than we have, fhould nevertheless be so much more in love than we are. But it is probable the great reafon of this may be the cruelty of our ladies; for a man must be imprudent indeed to let his paffion take very deep root, when he has no reason to expect any fort of return to it. And if it be fo, there ought to be a petition made to the fair, that they would be pleafed fometimes to abate a little of their rigour for the propagation of good verfe. I do not mean that they fhould confer their favours upon none but men of wit, that would be too great a confinement indeed; but that they would admit them upon the fame foot with other people; and if they please now and then to make the experiment, I fancy they will find entertainment enough from the very variety of it.

There are three forts of poems that are proper for love: paftorals, elegies, and lyric verfes; under which laft, I comprehend all fongs, odes, fonnets, madrigals, and ftanzas. Of all thefe, paftoral is the lowest, and, upon that account, perhaps moft proper for love; fince it is the nature of that paffion, to render the foul fuft and humble. Thefe three forts of poems ought to differ, not only in their numbers, but in the defigns, and in every thought of them. Though we have no difference between the verfes of paftoral and elegy in the modern languages, yet the numbers of the first ought to be loofer and not fo fonorous as the other; the thoughts more fimple, more eafy, and more humble. The defign ought to be the reprefenting the life of a fhepherd, not only by talking of fheep and fields, but by fhowing us the truth, fincerity, and innocence, that accompanies that fort of life: for though I know our masters, Theocritus and Virgil, have not always conformed in this point of innocence; Theocritus, in his Daphnis, having made his love too wanton, and Virgil, in his Alexis, placed his paffion upon a boy; yet (if we may be allowed to cenfure thofe whom we must always reverence) I take both those things to be faults in their poems, and fhould have been better pleafed with the Alexis if it had been made to a woman; and with the Daphnis, if he had made his fhepherds more modeft. When I give humility and modefty as the character of paftoral, it is not, however, but that a fhepherd may be allowed to boast of his pipe,

his

his fongs, his flocks, and to fhew a contempt of his rival, as we fee both Theocritas and Virgil do. But this must be still in fuch a manner as if the occafion offered itself, and was not fought, and proceeded rather from the violence of the shepherds paffion, than any natural pride or malice in him.

There ought to be the fame difference observed between paftorals and elegies as between the life of the country and the court. In the first, love ought to be reprefented as among fhepherds, in the other as among gentlemen. They ought to be fmooth, clear, tender, and paffionate. The thoughts may be bold, more gay, and more elevated, than in paftoral. The paffions they reprefent, either more gallant or more violent, and lefs innocent than the others. The fubjects of them, prayers, praise, expoftulations, quarrels, reconcilements, threatnings, jealoufies, and in fine, all the natural effects of love.

Lyricks may be allowed to handle all the fame fubjects with elegy, but to de it however in a different manner. An elegy ought to be fo entirely one thing, and every verse ought fo to depend upon the other, that they should not be able to fubfift alone; or, to make use of the words of a great modern critic, there must be

"Between each thought, and the whole model laid,
"So right, that every step may higher rife

"Like goodly mountains, till they reach the skies.”

Lyricks, on the other hand, though they ought to make one body as well as the other, yet may confist of parts that are entire of themfelves. It being a rule in modern languages, that every ftanza ought to make up a complete fenfe without running into the other. Frequent fentences, which are accounted faults in elegies, are beauties here. Befides this, Malherbe, and the French poets after him, have made it a rule in the ftanzas of fix lines, to make a paufe at the third; and in thofe of ten lines, at the third and the feventh. And it must be confeft that this exactnefs renders them much more mufical and harmonious; though they have not always been fo religious in obferving the latter rule as the former.

But I am engaged in a very vain or a very foolish defign: thofe who are critics, it would be a prefumption in me to pretend I could inftruct; and to inftruct those who are not, at the fame time I write myfelf, is (if I may be allowed to apply another man's fimile) like felling arms to an enemy in time of war: though there ought, perhaps, to be more indulgence fhewn to things of love and gallantry than any others, because they are generally written when people are young, and intended for ladies who are not fuppofed to be very old; and all young people, efpecially of the fair fex, are more taken with the liveliness of fancy, than the correctness of judgment. It may also be observed, that to write of love well, a man muft be really in love; and to correct his writings well, he must be out of love again. I am well enough fatisfied I may be in circumftances of writing of love, but I am almoft in defpair of ever being in circumstances of correcting it. This I hope may be a reafon for the fair and the young to pass over fome of the faults; and as for the grave and wife, all the favour I fhall beg of them is, that they would not read them. Things of this nature are calculated only for the former. If love-verfes work upon the ladies, a man will not trouble himself with what the critics fay of them and if they do not, all the commendations the critics can give him will make but very little amends. All I fhall fay for these trifles is, that I pretend not to vie with any man whatsoever. I doubt not but there are feveral now living who are able to write better on all fubjects than I am upon any one: but I will take the boldness to fay, that there is no one man among them all who fhall be readier to acknowledge his own faults, or to do juftice to the merits of other people.

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