tection of your Majesty's most august and facred Name; a Patronage to which I think I have fome Right, as being the earlieft, greateft, longeft and at this Time I believe the only Sufferer in your Majesty's Dominions, for an unbyass'd Zeal for the Security of the Succeffion of the House of Hanover. • But if that Plea be too weak, of too little Efficacy even with your Majesty; yet these Institutions bring a Claim of their own, which is, that as they teach the most noble, most antient, and most useful of all Arts, as that is so nearly concern'd in the forming the Manners, and refining the Spirit of your People, the Father of L of his People cannot refuse his Smiles, and fuch Marks of his Favour, as may encourage great Genius's to apply themselves to it, and rival Antiquity; to do which, a Royal Patron is only wanting. The Flourishing of Arts and Sciences is no less a Proof of the Glory of a great Prince and happy People, than the flourish ing of Arms: The first is indeed a greater, as the Ornaments and Benefits of Peace are more defirable than those of War A Nation in Peace, is in the State of Health; a Nation in War, is in a Course of Phyfic, which, tho neceffary to purge and carry off the gross and noxious Humours contracted in that State of Health, yet certainly none will think it preferable to the former. Upon these Grounds, and supported by these Reasons, I lay this antient Mother of all Arts and Sciences, of all Moral and Political Knowledge at your Majesty's Feet, imploring your Protection both of that, and of, THE こ PREFACE. ; 1 shall not trouble the Reader with any long Difcourse before the following Sheets, thinking it fufficient to inform him of the Caufe of my Writing them, the Method I have follow'd, and the Authors I have confulted in this Undertaking. The Love, Value and Honour I have always had for an Art so antient, so illustrious, and fo useful, as that of POERTY, furcilo'd the Motive to my Labour. For I had long seen with Regret the Affurance of Pretenders to it, and the Abuses that from almost a total Ignorance of it, had brought it into a neglect with most, and into a Contempt with Many, while the English World, that knew little of the Antients, judged of the a 4 Ex Excellence of Poetry by the rude Draughts of the general Scriblers of the Age, and finding nothing great, nothing wonderful in these, unjustly conclude that the Art it self is but a meer Trifle below a ferious Thought, which has drawn Dissuasives from our Study of it, from so great and judicious a Perfon as Mr. Lock in his Difcourse of Education. So different was his Opinion from that of Petronins Arbiter, who advises all those who intend to apply their Minds to any thing great, to employ their first Approaches to Letters in the Study of Verfe. But Mr. Lock chiefly confidering the Education of an English Gentleman, justly fuppos'd, that his Pupils Application to Poetical Writers, would scarce ever light up that Fire, which should warm the Heart to great Actions, and the embracing of Virtues useful to the Public. But if Mr. Lock had been to write of this Art, and confider'd it as it was handed down to us from Homer, Virgil, Pindar, Horace, Sophocles, Euripides, and the like, he would with Milton, as great a Man as himfelf in all kind of Literature, have recommended the Poets to the Study of his Pupil, as that admirable Poet does in his Discourse of Education to Mr. Hartlıb; but Milton's Notion of Poetry, was not what will fit |