Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/13

Rh ''want of health, have shut me out from sharing in the happiness. The Poets, who condemn their Tantalus to Hell, had added to his Torments, if they had plac'd him in Elysium, which is the proper Emblem of my Condition. The Fruit and the Water may reach my Lips, but cannot enter: And if they cou'd, yet I want a Palate as well as a Digestion. But it is some kind of pleasure to me, to please those whom I respect. And I am not altogether out of hope, that these Pastorals of Virgil may give your Lordship some delight, tho' made English by one, who scarce remembers that Passion which inspir'd my Author when he wrote them. These were his first Essay in Poetry, (if the Ceiris was not his:) And it was more excusable in him to describe Love when he was young, than for me to Translate him when I am Old. He died at the Age of fifty two, and I began this Work in my great Clymacterique. But having perhaps a better constitution than my Author, I have wrong'd him less, considering my Circumstances, than those who have attempted him before, either in our own, or any Modern''