PREFACE. .227 the ear is the truest judge; nor was it made to be enslaved to any precise model of elder or later times. After all, 1 must petition my reader to lay aside the sour and sullen air of cri- ticism, and to assume the friend. Let him choose such copies to read at particular hours, when the temper of his mind is suited to the Song. Let him come with a desire to be entertained and pleased, rather than to seek his own disgust and aver- sion, which will not be hard to find. I am not so vain ab to think there are no faults, nor so blind as to espy none: Though I hope the multitude of alterations in this second edition are not without amendment. There is so large a difference between this and the former, in the change of titles, lines, and whole poems, as well as in the various transpositions, that it would be useless and endless, and all confusion, for any reader to compare them throughout. Tha additions also make up almost half'the book, and some of these have need of as many alterations as the former. Many a line needs the file to polish the roughness of it, and many a thought wants richer language to adorn and make it shine. Wide defects and equal superfluities may be found, especially in the larger pieces; but I have at present . neither inclinationnor leisure to correct, and I hope I never shall. It is one of the biggest satisfactions I take in giving this volume to the world,' that I expect to be for ever free from the temptation of making or mending poemsagain.* So that my friends may be perfectly secure against this impression's growing waste upon their hands, and useless as the former has done. Let minds that are better furnished for such performances pursue these studies; if they are convinced that poesy can be made serviceable to religion and virtue. As for myself, I almost blush to think that I have read no little, and written so much. The following years Of my life shall be more entirely devoted to the immediate and direct labours of my station, excepting those hours that may be employed in finishing my imi- tation of the Psalms of David in christian language, which I have now promised the world.j I cannot court the world to purchase this book for their pleasure, or entertain, "lent, by telling them that any one copy entirely pleases me. The best of them sinks below the idea which I form of a divine or moral ode. He that deals in the mysteriesof heaven, or of the muses, should be a genius of no vulgar mould :, And as the name Vates belongs to both; so the furniture of both is comprised in that line of Horace. - Cui mens divinior, arque os " Magna sonaturum." But what Juvenal spoke in his age, abides true in ours: A complete poet or a prophet is such a one, " - Qualem nequeo monstrare, et sentio tantum." Perhaps neither of these characters in perfection shall ever be seen on earth, till the seventh angel has sounded his awful trumpet ; till the victory be complete over the beast and his image, when the natives of heaven shall join in consort with prophets and saints, and sing to their golden harps, " Salvation, honour and glory to him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever." * " Naturam expellas furcis licet, usque recurret." Hon. Will this short note of Horace excuse a man who has resisted nature many years, but hasbean some- times overcome? 1736. Edition the 7th. . In the year 1719 these were finished and printed. May 14, 1709, r2
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