" And if I may be allowed to change
the metaphor, I would say that Virgil is like the Fame which he
describes:-
"Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo."
Such a sort of reputation is my aim, though in a far inferior
degree, according to my motto in the title-page--sequiturque patrem
non passibus aequis--and therefore I appeal to the highest court of
judicature, like that of the peers, of which your lordship is so
great an ornament.
Without this ambition which I own, of desiring to please the judices
natos, I could never have been able to have done anything at this
age, when the fire of poetry is commonly extinguished in other men.
Yet Virgil has given me the example of Entellus for my
encouragement; when he was well heated, the younger champion could
not stand before him. And we find the elder contended not for the
gift, but for the honour (nec dona moror); for Dampier has informed
us in his "Voyages" that the air of the country which produces gold
is never wholesome.
I had long since considered that the way to please the best judges
is not to translate a poet literally, and Virgil least of any other;
for his peculiar beauty lying in his choice of words, I am excluded
from it by the narrow compass of our heroic verse, unless I would
make use of monosyllables only, and these clogged with consonants,
which are the dead weight of our mother tongue.
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