He must also know the
nature of the vowels--which are more sonorous, and which more soft
and sweet--and so dispose them as his present occasions require; all
which, and a thousand secrets of versification beside, he may learn
from Virgil, if he will take him for his guide. If he be above
Virgil, and is resolved to follow his own verve (as the French call
it), the proverb will fall heavily upon him: "Who teaches himself
has a fool for his master."
Virgil employed eleven years upon his "AEneis," yet he left it, as
he thought himself, imperfect; which, when I seriously consider, I
wish that, instead of three years which I have spent in the
translation of his works, I had four years more allowed me to
correct my errors, that I might make my version somewhat more
tolerable than it is; for a poet cannot have too great a reverence
for his readers if he expects his labours should survive him. Yet I
will neither plead my age nor sickness in excuse of the faults which
I have made. That I wanted time is all I have to say; for some of
my subscribers grew so clamorous that I could no longer defer the
publication.
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