The PREFACE.
Poet our English Critick takes notice of. He acknowledges that his Wit was well known; that in his Preface to his Gondibert, appear some strokes of an extraordinary Judgment; that he is said to have a particular Talent for the Manners; that his Thoughts are great; and lastly that there appears something roughly noble throughout this Fragment. Yet after all, he blames him, for the ill choice of his Subject; for his bad Conduct; for a Vicious Oeconomy; and for his unhappy choice of the Tetrastick. Cowley is the third and last Heroick Poet, our Author mentions, and to him he gives particular Commendations. He says, "That a more happy Genius for Heroick Poesie appears in Cowley; that he understood the Purity, the Perspicuity, the Majesty of the Stile and the Vertue of Numbers; that he could discern what was beautiful and pleasant in Nature; and could express his Thoughts without the least difficulty or constraint; that he understood to dispose of the Matters, and to manage his Digressions; and lastly that he understood Homer and Virgil, and as prudently made his advantage of them." Yet after all these high Commendations, he laments his not carrying on the Work so far as he design'd, and his not living to revise what he did leave behind him: And blames him for his ill choice of the Subject of his Poem, in that like Lucan he made choice of History, and a History where he was so strictly ty'd up to the Truth. He likewise blames him for inserting the Lyrick measure in the very body of his Poem. Thus far the Judicious Rymer goes, and it were to be wish'd he had passed his judgment on the famous Milton another of our English Poets; but since he has wav'd saying any thing about him, till some other time, I shall crave leave to insert the Opinion of Dryden, a profess'd Poet, and as a great Judge of Poetry. He tells us in his Dedication before the Translation of Juvenal,"That
