Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/14

2 ''Language. And tho' this Version is not void of Errours, yet it comforts me that the faults of others are not worth finding. Mine are neither gross nor frequent, in those Eclogues, wherein my Master has rais'd himself above that humble Stile in which Pastoral delights, and which I must confess is proper to the Education and Converse of Shepherds: for he found the strength of his Genius betimes, and was even in his youth preluding to his Georgics, and his Æneis. He cou'd not forbear to try his Wings, tho' his Pinions were not harden'd to maintain a long laborious flight. Yet sometimes they bore him to a pitch as lofty, as ever he was able to reach afterwards. But when he was admonish'd by his subject to descend, he came down gently circling in the air, and singing to the ground. Like a Lark, melodious in her mounting, and continuing her Song 'till she alights: still preparing for a higher flight at her next sally, and tuning her voice to better musick. The Fourth, the Sixth, and the Eighth Pastorals, are clear Evidences of this truth. In the three first he contains himself within his bounds; but Addressing to''