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I ADD ALSO A TRANSLATION OF THE
PROLOGUE TO THE ANDRIAN OF TERENCE,
BY THE SAME NOBLE AND VENERABLE PEN.
When first to write the Poet bent His Mind,
This only Task He thought Himself assign'd,
Such Fables, as might please the Town to write—
But He perceives the Thing is alter'd quite.
For writing Prologues He mispends in vain
His Labour, not the Subject to explain,
But th' old sour Poet's Railing to confute.
Now mind, pray, what the Fault is They impute.
Menander the Perinthian composed,
And Andrian the Plots in both proposed
Were not so different, but one, who knew
Whichever well, must know the other too.
He owns from the Perinthian He transferred
Whatever with His Andrian fairly squared,
This only Task He thought Himself assign'd,
Such Fables, as might please the Town to write—
But He perceives the Thing is alter'd quite.
For writing Prologues He mispends in vain
His Labour, not the Subject to explain,
But th' old sour Poet's Railing to confute.
Now mind, pray, what the Fault is They impute.
Menander the Perinthian composed,
And Andrian the Plots in both proposed
Were not so different, but one, who knew
Whichever well, must know the other too.
He owns from the Perinthian He transferred
Whatever with His Andrian fairly squared,
