our common Authors, as will be plain from his Words, which I shall quote before I have done this Preface..

To remove therefore this Ignorance of our Writers and Readers of Poefy, which has debas'd the Honour of this Mother of all Learning, was the Caufe of my Undertaking, by giving our English World those Rules, by the Obfervation of which, < Homer, Virgil, and the rest of the Antients gain'd immortal Reputation.

On the other fide, I knew very well that it was a Matter of no small difficulty to reason People, out of Follies establish'd by Custom; and that the general Run of a noify Party, was against all Instructions in this Kind, which they branded with the unpopular Name of Criticism, which by the Ignorant Writers in Vogue, has been mifre- << presented as an ill-natur'd Thing; and that too many Learned Men in several Languages, by a jejune way of handling this Art, had incumber'd its Maxims with Abundance of hard Terms, which not being obvious to to every Reader, render'd their Discoveries however valuable, rot so inviting as to engage the Perufal of those who stood most in need of them.

Monfieur Fontennelle's Book of the Plurality

of Worlds, so much prais'd by Sir William

Temple

Temple in his Eflays, and plac'd by him in the next Form to the Antients, made me think of another Method than had hitherto generally been follow'd by the Critical Writers. For he has brought the three Systems of Aftronomy by a pleasing and familiar Dress to the Capacity of a Lady, who had not any Learning, and nothing but good Senfe to direct her.

I have endeavor'd in the following Sheets, to come as near his Method as the Difference of my Subject from his would bear; where I was upon Generals, as the defence of Poetry, and the neceffity of the Rules, I hope I have shown this; but being in other Parts oblig'd to speak of the particular Rules of every fort of Poetry, all I could do was to deliver them as plainly, and as difencumber'd from Terms of Art as I possibly cou'd, and I think through the whole I have made use of no Word which is not familiar to every Capacity, that knows any thing of the World. In the last Dialogue indeed, where I was oblig'd to speak of the several Poetical Feet of the Greek and Latin Verse, there was no avoiding putting their proper Names, but I have taken care so to explain them, that every one may be Master of what I advance.

I am far from aiming to impose what I deliver as all my own. I write the Complete Art of Poetry, and therefore am under a neceffity to give the Rules convey'd down to us, which have been establish'd these two Thoufand Years and upwards. All I pretend to, is, that I hope I have done this in a plain and easy Manner, so as not to tire my Reader, and yet give him a full Instruction in the Art. And this leads me to the Authors I have confulted. Whatever I found of use to my Design in Aristotle (chiefly) in Horace, Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus, Boileau, Rapin, Da cier, Gerard Voffius's Poetical Institutions, the late Duke of Buckingham's Rehearsal, Me. Rimer, the present Duke of Buckinghamshire's most excellent Essay on Poetry, Mr. Dennis, or any other I have made bold with; so that my Reader will have the Satisfaction of great and illuftrious Instructors, when he perufes my Book.

Having gone through the three Heads proposed by me for this Preface, I find I am oblig'd to add something more on Account of another Book in our Tongue, which at first View may seem to be of the fame Nature, and that is Mr. Bysshe's Art of English Poetry, with a Collection, &c. But I had no Thoughts of interfering with him, and indeed I do not; we propose quite different Ends

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Ends, and therefore have pursued quite different Methods. He (tho' he calls his Book the Art of English Poetry) aims only at giving Rules for the Structure of an English Verfe, at Rime, and the like. And thus in his Collection, he aims at settling a fort of Dictionary of Epithets and Synonymous Words, which he tells us is the End of his Collection. But the Design of my Collection, is to give the Reader the great Images that are to be found in those of our Poets, who are truly great, as well as their Topics and Moral Reflections. And for this Reason I have been pretty large in my Quotations from Spenser, whom he has rejected, and have gone through Shakespear, whom he feems willing to exclude, being fatisfy'd that the Charms of these two great Poets are too ftrong not to touch the Soul of any one who has a true Genius for Poetry, and by Consequence enlarge that Imagination which is so very necessary for all Poetical Performances. And fince Milton and Wal ler were made Poets by Spenser, I do fuppose the fame Cause may in all Probability have the fame Effect When I say that Spenfer made those two great Men Poets, I only mean that the true Ethereal Fire that they found in him, rous'd that Genius, which each of them had by Nature, into Act.

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If in this Collection any of the fame Verses should happen to be found, it is not because they were in Mr. Bysshe's, but because they were found in the Poets as I read them, and as free for me to quote as for him. 'Tis plain I follow him not, when of all his List of Names I have scarce medled with above four.

This Gentleman indeed, and I are of quite a different Opinion of Poetry, he tells us in his Preface. For upon the whole Matter (fays he) it was not my Business to judge any further, than on the Vigour and Force of Thought, of the Purity of the Language, of the Aptness and Propriety of Expression, and above all of the Beauty of Colouring, in which the Poet's Art chiefly confists

But I have in the Body of the Book prov'd that the Poet's Art does not chiefly confift in the Colouring, any more than that of the Painter, but in the Design. Which puts me in Mind of a Repartee of Michael Angelo, on Titian, who feeing the Pieces of the former, said he would be an excellent Painter if he understood Colouring: And Titian reply'd, the other would be a very good Painter if he understood Designing..

I will not oppose to him Aristotle, Horace, Boffu, Dacier, and other great Men among the Antients and Moderns, left he should ex

cept