he can ftill fing under the burthen, not unlike that

*** Quem dimifere Philippi

Decifis humilem pennis, inopemque paterni
Et Laris, & fundi. * *

Whofe fpreading wings the civil war had clip'd,
And him of his old patrimony strip'd;

Who yet not long after could fay,

Mufis amicus, triftitiam & metus

Tradam protervis in mare Creticum

Portare ventis

Lib. I. Ode xxvi.

They that acquainted with the Muses be,
Send care, and forrow, by the winds to fea.

Not fo much moved with these reasons of ours (or pleas'd with our rhymes) as wearied with our importunity, he has at last given us leave to affure the Reader, that the Poems which have been fo long, and fo ill fet forth under his name, are here to be found as he first writ them: as alfo, to add fome others which have fince been compofed by him. And though his advice to the contrary might have discouraged us; yet, obferving how often they have been reprinted, what price they have borne, and how earnestly they have been

Horace, Lib. II. Epift. ii.

B 3

always

always inquired after, but especially of late; (making

good that of Horace,

Meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit:

Lib. II. Epift. i.

"Some verses being, like fome vines, recommended "to our tafte by time and age,”)

We have adventured upon this new and well-corrected Edition; which, for our own fakes as well as thine, we hope will fucceed better than he apprehended.

Vivitur ingenio, cætera mortis erunt.

ALBINOVANUS,

PRE.

TH

tion of these Poems, than that they are Mr. Waller's: : a name that carries every thing in it that is either great, or graceful, in poetry! He was indeed the Parent of English Verse, and the firft that fhewed us our Tongue had Beauty, and Numbers, in it. Our language owes more to Him than the French does to Cardinal Richelieu and the whole Academy. A.Poet cannot think of Him, without being in the fame rapture Lucretius is in, when Epicurus comes in his way:

Tu pater, & rerum inventor; Tu patria nobis
Suppeditas præcepta: tuifque ex, Inclute! chartis,
Floriferis ut apes in faltibus omnia libant,
Omnia nos itidem depafcimur aurea dicta ;
Aurea perpetuâ femper digniffima vitâ !

Lib. III. ver. 9.

The Tongue came into His hands, like a rough diamond: He polished it first; and to that degree, that all artists since him have admired the workmanship, without pretending to mend it. Suckling and Carew, I

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