That I may pursue the allegory with a short prayer after a long
sermon.
May you live happily and long for the service of your country, the
encouragement of good letters and the ornament of poetry, which
cannot be wished more earnestly by any man than by
Your Lordship's most humble,
Most obliged and most
Obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.
POSTSCRIPT.
What Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age (in plenty and at ease) I
have undertaken to translate in my declining years; struggling with
wants, oppressed by sickness, curbed in my genius, liable to be
misconstrued in all I write; and my judges, if they are not very
equitable, already prejudiced against me by the lying character
which has been given them of my morals. Yet steady to my
principles, and not dispirited with my afflictions, I have, by the
blessing of God on my endeavours, overcome all difficulties; and, in
some measure, acquitted myself of the debt which I owed the public
when I undertook this work. In the first place, therefore, I
thankfully acknowledge to the Almighty Power the assistance He has
given me in the beginning, the prosecution, and conclusion of my
present studies, which are more happily performed than I could have
promised to myself when I laboured under such discouragements.
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