Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/80

 and therefore I will boldly own, that this English Translation has more of Virgil's Spirit in it, than either the French, or the Italian. Some of our Country-men have translated Episodes, and other parts of Virgil, with great Suc­cess. As particularly your Lordship, whose Version of Orpheus and Eurydice, is eminently good. Amongst the dead Authors, the Si­lenus of my Lord Roscommon cannot be too much commended. I say nothing of Sir John Denham, Mr. Waller, and Mr. Cowley; tis the utmost of my Ambition to be thought their Equal, or not to be much inferiour to them, and some others of the Living. But tis one thing to take pains on a Fragment, and Translate it perfectly; and another thing to have the weight of a whole Author on my shoulders. They who believe the Burthen light, let them attempt the Fourth, Sixth or Eighth Pastoral, the First or Fourth Georgick; and amongst the Æneids, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Seventh, the Ninth, the Tenth, the Ele­venth, or the Twelfth; for in these I think I have succeeded best.

Long before I undertook this Work, I was no stranger to the Origi­nal. I had also studied Virgil's Design, his disposition of it, his Man­ners, his judicious management of the Figures, the sober retrenchments of his Sense, which always leaves somewhat to gratifie our Imaginati­on, on which it may enlarge at pleasure: but above all, the Elegance of his Expressions, and the Harmony of his Numbers. For, as I have said in a former Dissertation, the Words are in Poetry, what the Co­lours are in Painting. If the Design be good, and the Draught be true, the Colouring is the first Beauty that strikes the Eye. Spencer and Milton are the nearest in English, to Virgil and Horace in the Latin; and I have endeavour'd to form my Stile by imitating their Masters. I will farther own to you, my Lord, that my chief Ambition is to please those Readers who