The first epistle of the second book of Horace, imitated | ||
ADVERTISEMENT.
The Reflections of Horace, and the Judgments past in this Epistle to Augustus, seem'd so seasonable to the present Times, that I could not help applying them to the use of my own Country. The Author thought them considerable enough to address them to His Prince; whom he paints with all the great and good Qualities of a Monarch, upon whom the Romans depended for the Encrease of an Absolute Empire. But to make the Poem entirely English, I was willing to add one or two such, as contribute to the Happiness of a Free People, and are more consistent with the Welfare of our Neighbours.
This Epistle will show the learned World to have fallen into two mistakes; one, that Augustus was a Patron of Poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the Best Writers to name him, but recommended that Care even to the Civil Magistrate: Admonebat Prætores, ne paterentur Nomen suum obsolefieri, &c. The other to imagine this Piece to be a general Discourse of Poetry; whereas it is an Apology for the Poets, in order to render Augustus more their Patron. Horace here pleads the Cause of his Contemporaries, first against the Taste of the
We may farther learn from this Epistle, that Horace made his Court to this Great Prince, by writing with a decent Freedom toward him, with a just Contempt of his low Flatterers, and with a manly Regard to his own Character.
The first epistle of the second book of Horace, imitated | ||