in so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges, few eyes can sound her :) I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm her, that the date being out of her darkness in this morning of our Homer, he shall now gird his temples with the Sun, and be confest, against his good friend, Nunquam dormitare. But how all Translators, Censors, and Interpreters, have slept, and been dead to his true understanding, I hope it will neither cast shadow of arrogance in me to affirm, nor of difficulty in you to believe: if you please to suspend censure, and diminution, till your impartial conference of their pains and mine be admitted. For induction and preparative to which patience and persuasion, trouble yourselves but to know this: This never-enough glorified Poet, (to vary and quicken his eternal Poem) hath inspired his chief persons with different spirits, most ingenious and inimitable characters; which not understood, how are their speeches ? being one by another as conveniently and necessarily known, as the instrument by the sound. If a Translator or Interpreter of a ridiculous and cowardly described person, (being deceived in his character) so violates and vitiates the original to make his speech grave, and him valiant, can the negligence and numbness of such an Interpreter or Translator be less than the sleep and death I am bold to sprinkle upon him? Or could I do less than affirm and enforce this, being so happily discovered? This therefore in his due place approved and explained, let me hope my other assumpts will prove as conspicuous.

This first and second Book I have wholly translated again: the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth Books, deferring, still imperfect, being Englished so long since; and my late hand, overcome with labour, not yet rested enough to refine them. Nor are the wealthy veins of this holy ground so amply discovered in my first twelve labours, as my last; nor having competent time, nor my profit in his mysteries being so ample, as when driving through his thirteenth and last books, I drew the main depth, and saw the round coming of this silver bow of our Phoebus; the

clear scope and contexture of his work; the full and most beautiful figures of his persons. To these last twelve then I must

refer you, for all the chief worth of my clear discoveries. And in the mean space I entreat your acceptance of some few touches in the first. Not perplexing you in first or last with any thing handled in any other Interpreter, further than I most conscionably make congression with such as have diminished, mangled, and maimed my most worthily most tendered author," &c.

Last paragraph of Commentary to Book III.

"And here haste makes me give end to these new Annotations, deferring the like in the next nine Books to more breath and encouragement. Since time, that hath ever oppressed me, will not otherwise let me come to the last twelve, in which the first free light of my author entred and emboldened me. Where so many rich discoveries importune my poor expression, that I fear rather to betray them to the world, than express them to their price. But howsoever Envy and Prejudice stand squirting their poison through the eyes of my readers, this shall appear to all competent apprehensions, I have followed the original with authentical expositions, (according to the proper signification of the word in this place, though I differ therein utterly from others :) I have rendred all things of importance with answerable life and height to my author, though with some periphrasis, without which no man can worthily translate any worthy Poet. And since the translation itself, and my notes, being impartially conferred, amply approve this, I will still be confident in the worth of my pains, how idly and unworthily soever I be censured. And thus to the last twelve Books, (leaving other horrible errors in his other Interpreters unmoved) with those free feet that entred me, I haste, sure of nothing but my labour."

Extract from Commentary to Book XIV.

"Our plain and smug writers, because their own unwieldiness will not let them rise themselves, would have every man grovel like them their feathers not passing the pitch of every woman's capacity. And indeed, where a man is understood, there is ever a proportion betwixt the writer's wit and the writee's (that I may speak with authority) according to my old lesson in philosophy: Intellectus in ipsa intelligibilia transit. But herein this case is ruled against such men, that they affirm these hyperthetical or superlative sort of expressions and illustrations are too bold and bumbasted; and out of that word is spun that which they call our fustian: their plain writing being stuff nothing so substantial, but such gross sowtege, or hairpatch, as every goose may eat oats through. Against which, and all these plebeian opinions, that a man is bound to write to every reader's understanding, you see the great master of all elocution hath written so darkly, that almost three thousand suns have not discovered him, no more in five hundred other places than here; and yet all pervial enough, you may well say, when such a one as I comprehend them. But the chief end why I extend this Annotation is only to intreat your note here of Homer's manner of writing, which, to utter his afterstore of matter and variety, is so press, and puts on with so strong a current, that it far overruns the most laborious pursuer, if he have not a poetical foot, and Poesy's quick eye to guide it."

Conclusion of Book XXIV and last.

"Thus far the Ilian ruins I have laid

Open to English eyes: in which repaid
With thine own value, go, unvalued Book!

Live, and be lov'd! If any envious look

Hurt thy clear fame, learn that no state more high
Attends on Virtue, than pin'd Envy's eye!

Would thou wert worth it, that the best doth wound,

Which this age feeds, and which the last shall bound.”

" Thus with labour enough, though with more comfort in the merits of my divine author, I have brought my Translation of his Iliads to an end. If either therein, or in the harsh utterance, or matter of my comment before, I have, for haste, scattered with my burden, (less than fifteen weeks being the whole time that the last twelve Books' Translation stood me in) I desire my present will, and I doubt not ability, if God give life, to reform and perfect all hereafter, may be ingeniously accepted for the absolute work. The rather, considering the most learned with all their helps and time, have been so often and unanswerably miserably taken halting. In the mean time, that most assistful and unspeakable Spirit, by whose thrice sacred conduct and inspiration I have finished this labour, diffuse the fruitful horn of his blessings through these goodness-thirsting watchings, without which, utterly dry and bloodless is whatsoever mortality soweth.

But where our most diligent Spondanus ends his work with a prayer, to be taken out of these Meanders and Euripian rivers (as he terms them) of Ethnic and Prophane writers, being quite contrary to himself at the beginning, I thrice humbly beseech the most dear and most divine Mercy, ever most incomparably preferring the great light of his truth in his direct and infallible Scriptures, I may ever be enabled by resting wondring in his right comfortable shadows in these, to magnify the clearness of his almighty appearance in the other.

And with this salutation of Poesy given by our Spondanus in his Preface to these Iliads, All-hail, saint-sacred Poesy, that under so much gall of Fiction, such abundance of honeydoctrine hast hidden, not revealing them to the unworthy worldly, wouldst thou but so much make me, that amongst thy novices I might be numbered, no time should ever come near my life, that could make me forsake thee. I will conclude with this my daily and nightly prayer, learn'd of the most learned Simplicius.

"Supplico tibi, Domine, Pater, et Dux rationis nostræ, ut

nostræ nobilitatis recordemur qua tu nos ornasti; et ut tu nobis præsto sis, ut iis qui persese moventur : ut a corporis contagio, brutorumque affectuum repurgemur, eosque superemus, et regamus, et sicut decet, pro instrumentis iis utamur. Deinde ut nobis adjumento sis, ad accuratam rationis nostræ correctionem; et conjunctionem cum iis quæ vere fiunt, per lucem veritatis. Et tertium, Salvatori supplex oro; ut ab oculis animorum nostrorum caliginem prorsus abstergas, ut (quod apud Home.um est) norimus bene qui Deus, aut mortalis habendus. Amen."

DEDICATORY SONNETS.

I.

"To the right gracious and worthy the Duke of Lennox.

Amongst the heroes of the world's prime years,

Stand here, great Duke, and see them shine about you :
Inform your princely mind and spirit by theirs,
And then, like them, live ever: look without you,

For subjects fit to use your place, and grace,

Which throw about you as the sun his rays,

In quick'ning with their power, the dying race Of friendless Virtue, since they thus can raise Their honour'd raisers to eternity.

None ever liv'd by self-love: others' good

Is th' object of our own: they living die,
That bury in themselves their fortune's brood.

To this soul, then, your generous countenance give,
That gave to such as you such means to live.