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The Preface.
if the Notes were fill'd with Greek Verses, it wou'd more increase the Wonder of many Readers. Thus I went on; when he told me, smiling, I had shewn him indeed a Set of Arts very different from Merit, for which Reason, he thought, he ought not to depend upon them. A Success, says he, founded on the Ignorance of others, may bring a temporary Advantage, but neither a conscious Satisfaction, nor future Fame to the Author. Men of Sense despise the Affectation which they easily see through, and even they who were dazzled with it at first, are no sooner inform'd of its being an Affectation, but they imagine it also a Veil to cover Imperfection.
The next Point I ventur'd to speak on, was the Sort of Poetry he intended to use; how some may fancy, a Poet of the greatest Fire wou'd be imitated better in the Freedom of Blank Verse, and the Description of War sounds more pompous out of Rhime. But, will the Translation, said he, be thus remov'd enough from Prose, without greater Inconveniences? What Transpositions is Milton forc'd to, as an Equivalent for Want of Rhime, in the Poetry of a Language which depends upon a natural Order of Words? And even this wou'd not have done his Business, had he not given the fullest Scope to his Genius, by choosing a Subject upon which there could be no Hyperboles. We see (however he be deservedly successful) that the Ridicule of his Manner succeeds better than the Imitation of it; because Transpositions, which are unnaturalto
