That your lordship may see I was in earnest when I premised to
hasten to an end, I will not give the reasons why I writ not always
in the proper terms of navigation, land-service, or in the cant of
any profession. I will only say that Virgil has avoided these
proprieties, because he writ not to mariners, soldiers, astronomers,
gardeners, peasants, &c., but to all in general, and in particular
to men and ladies of the first quality, who have been better bred
than to be too nicely knowing in the terms. In such cases, it is
enough for a poet to write so plainly that he may be understood by
his readers; to avoid impropriety, and not affect to be thought
learned in all things.
I have emitted the four preliminary lines of the first AEneid,
because I think them inferior to any four others in the whole poem;
and consequently believe they are not Virgil's. There is too great
a gap betwixt the adjective vicina in the second line, and the
substantive arva in the latter end of the third; which keeps his
meaning in obscurity too long, and is contrary to the clearness of
his style.
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