Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/86

 but their own. Virgil has sometimes two of them in a Line; but the scantiness of our Heroick Verse, is not capable of receiving more than one: And that too must expiate for many others which have none. Such is the difference of the Languages, or such my want of skill in chusing words. Yet I may presume to say, and I hope with as much reason as the French Translator, that taking all the Ma­terials of this divine Author, I have endeavour'd to make Virgil speak such English, as he wou'd himself have spoken, if he had been born in England, and in this present Age. I acknowledge, with Segrais, that I have not succeeded in this attempt, according to my desire: yet I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I may be allow'd to have copied the Clearness, the Purity, the Easiness and the Mag­nificence of his Stile. But I shall have occasion to speak farther on this Subject, before I end the Preface.

When I mention'd the Pindarick Line, I should have added, that I take another License in my Verses: For I frequently make use of Triplet Rhymes, and for the same Reason: Because they bound the Sense. And therefore I generally join these two Licenses together: And make the last Verse of the Triplet a Pindarique: For besides, the Majesty which it gives, it confines the sense within the barriers of three Lines, which wou'd languish if it were lengthen'd into four. Spencer is my Example for both these priviledges of English Verses. And Chapman has follow'd him in his Translation of Homer. Mr. Cowley has given in to them after both: And all succeeding Writers after him. I regard them now as the Magna Charta of Heroick Poetry; and am too much an English-man to lose what my Ancestors have gain'd for me. Let the French and Italians value themselves on their Regularity: Strength and Elevation are our Standard. I said before, and I repeat it,