The Preface.
If
an account is to bee given the Commonwealth,
as Cato thought, even of our idlenesse;
take then, at thine owne leasure, this
of mine. For such and no better may a grave
Censor deeme it, though I write after a most
learned Copy, and have the priviledge of a
Divine Argument. Yea, I my selfe, had I
not the allowance of some friends, both candid
and judicious, would sooner commit these
Papers to the light of the fire, then of the Sun.
It may likewise be a question perhaps, whether
an Interpreter deserve the name of a Poet;
but he, that is one indeed, a Virgil or
Homer need not envy a Cicero or Demosthenes.
“I had rather saith Tacitus
(or who else is the Author) in Dialog. d.
Orator. have the secure and secret retirement
of
Virgil, wherein yet he neither wanted
the favour of
Augustus Cæsar, nor the
being taken notice of by the People of
Rome: Witness the Epistles of
Augustus,
witness the People themselves, who upon
hearing some verses of
Virgil in the
Theater, rose all up, and did the same reverence
to
Virgil, by chance then present,
and a spectator, as unto
Augustus. Our
Author is an excellent and admirable patterne,
not onely for Poetry and Oratory, but all Divine
and humane learning; I would gladly
follow the best examples, and overtake them,
when any other of my endeavours shall from
the Father of lights (from whom every good
and perfect gift commeth down) receive such a
blessing.
