Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/21

Rh, ''which I have to serve you, adds to your paternal right, for I was wholly yours from the first moment, when I had the happiness and honour of being known to you. Be pleas'd therefore to accept the Rudiments of Virgil's Poetry: Coursely Translated I confess, but which yet retains some Beauties of the Author, which neither the barbarity of our Language, nor my unskilfulness cou'd so much sully, but that they appear sometimes in the dim mirrour which I hold before you. The Subject is not unsuitable to your Youth, which allows you yet to Love, and is proper to your present Scene of Life. Rural Recreations abroad, and Books at home, are the innocent Pleasures of a Man who is early Wise; and gives Fortune no more hold of him, than of necessity he must. 'Tis good, on some occasions to think beforehand as little as we can; to enjoy as much of the present as will not endanger our futurity; and to provide our selves of the Vertuoso's Saddle, which will be sure to amble, when the World is upon the hardest trott. What I humbly offer to your Lordship, is of this nature. I wish it''