The Preface to the Reader.
native words & Dialects, had been better cultivated for use than a perpetual transplanting so many from forreign soils, while the state of our language seems not unlike a greedy kind of prodigality, which contracts variety of debts to make a large purchase, not considering he ruines in the mean time his antient Patrimony.
I know there are many amongst us who allow much to the improving of wit from the enlarging of our tongue, as if there were a Reciprocation in both; and for the same reason must judge we are alwayes on the mending hand, since we are still like to continue, introducing of words. But when shall wit and its Refiner Language after this rate receive their ultimate perfection, since as Horace sayes
Scire velim pretium Chartis quetus arroget annus.
But neither these eminent persons, nor any other of our own Writers, whose pens might doubtless have winged their Muses to their higest pitch of Heroick glory, have handled this Subject; or for the honor of our Nation, laid the Scene at home after the example of Virgil, who brought his Æneas from Troy into Italy, and there made him encounter as famous Heroes as that Story could relate, though written by the immortal pen of Homer, while our antientand
