not Philosophers; as if Horace had writ meerly to have his Language understood, and rather to divert, than instruct us. That is not the End of this Work of his. The End of any Discourse is, the Action for which that Discourse is compos'd; when it produces no Action, 'tis only a vain Amusement, which idly tickles the Ear, without ever reaching the Heart.
In these two Books of his Satyrs, Horace would teach us, to conquer our Vices, to rule our Passions, to follow Nature, to limit our Desires, to distinguish True from False, and Idea's from Things, to forsake Prejudice, to know throughly the Principles and Motives of all our Actions, and to shun that Folly which is in all Men who are bigotted to the Opinions they have imbibed under their Teachers, which they keep obstinately, without examining whether they are well grounded. In a Word, He endeavours to make us happy for our selves, agreeable, and faithful to our Friends, easie, discreet, and honest to all, with whom we are oblig'd to live. To make us understand the Terms he uses, to explain the Figures he employs, and to conduct the Reader safely through the Labyrinth of a difficult Expression, or obscure Parenthesis, is no great Matter to perform: And as Epictetus says, There is nothing in That beautiful, or truly worthy a wise Man. The principal and most important Business, is, to shew the Rise, the Reason, and the Proof of his Precepts, to demonstrate that those who do not endeavour to correct themselves by so beautiful a Model, are just like sick Men, who having a Book full of Receipts, proper to their Distempers, content themselves to read 'em, without comprehending them, or so much as knowing the Advantage of them.
I urge not this because I have my self omitted any thing in these Annotations, which was the incumbent Duty of a Grammarian to observe; this I hope the World will be sensible of, and that there remains no more Difficulty in the Text. But that which has been my chief Care, is, to give an Insight into the very Matter that Horace treats of, to shew the Solidity of his Reasons, to discover the Turns he makes use of to prove what he aims at, and to refute or elude that which is opposed to him, to confirm the Truth of his Decisions, to make the Delicacy of his Sentiments perceiv'd, to expose to open Day the Folly he finds in what he condemns. This is what none have done before me. On the contrary, as Horace is a true Proteus, that takes a thousand different Forms, they have often lost him, and not knowing where to find him, have grappled him as well as they could; they have palm'd upon him in several places, not only Opinions which he had not, but even those which he directly refutes: I don't say this to blame those who have taken Pains before me on the Works of this great Poet; I commend their Endeavours; they have open'd me the way;and
