Such is
the difference of the languages, or such my want of skill in
choosing words. Yet I may presume to say, and I hope with as much
reason as the French translator, that, taking all the materials of
this divine author, I have endeavoured to make Virgil speak such
English as he would himself have spoken if he had been born in
England and in this present age. I acknowledge, with Segrais, that
I have not succeeded in this attempt according to my desire; yet I
shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I may be allowed
to have copied the clearness, the purity, the easiness, and the
magnificence of his style. But I shall have occasion to speak
farther on this subject before I end the preface.
When I mentioned the Pindaric line, I should have added that I take
another licence in my verses; for I frequently make use of triplet
rhymes, and for the same reason--because they bound the sense. And
therefore I generally join these two licences together, and make the
last verse of the triplet a Pindaric; for besides the majesty which
it gives, it confines the sense within the barriers of three lines,
which would languish if it were lengthened into four.
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