With what scorn would he look down on such miserable translators, who make doggrel of his Latin, mistake his meaning, mis-apply his censures, and often contradict their own? He is fixed as a landmark to set out the bounds of poetry: --_Saxum antiquum, ingens,-- Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis._ But other arms than theirs, and other sinews are required, to raise the weight of such an author; and when they would toss him against their enemies, _Genua labant, gelidus concrevit frigore sanguis. Tum lapis ipse, viri vacuum per inane volutus, Nec spatium evasit totum, nec pertulit ictum_[5]. For my part, I would wish no other revenge, either for myself, or the rest of the poets, from this rhyming judge of the twelve-penny gallery, this legitimate son of Sternhold, than that he would subscribe his name to his censure, or (not to tax him beyond his learning) set his mark: For, should he own himself publicly, and come from behind the lion's skin, they, whom he condemns, would be thankful to him, they, whom he praises, would chuse to be condemned; and the magistrates, whom he has elected, would modestly withdraw from their employment, to avoid the scandal of his nomination[6]. The sharpness of his satire, next to himself, falls most heavily on his friends, and they ought never to forgive him for commending them perpetually the wrong way, and sometimes by contraries. If he have a friend, whose hastiness in writing is his greatest fault, Horace would have taught him to have minced the matter, and to have called it readiness of thought, and a flowing fancy; for friendship will allow a man to christen an imperfection by the name of some neighbour virtue; _Vellem in amicitia sic erraremus; et isti Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum._ But he would never have allowed him to have called a slow man hasty, or a hasty writer a slow drudge[7], as Juvenal explains it: --_Canibus pigris, scabieque vetusta Laevibus, et siccae lambentibus ora lucernae, Nomen erit, Pardus, Tygris, Leo; si quid adhuc est Quod fremit in terris violentius_[8]. Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the imperfections of his mistress: _Nigra [Greek: melichroos] est, immunda et foetida [Greek: akosmos]. Balba loqui non quit, [Greek: traulizei]; muta pudens est, &c._ But to drive it _ad AEthiopem cygnum_ is not to be endured. I leave him to interpret this by the benefit of his French version on the other side, and without farther considering him, than I have the rest of my illiterate censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because they are not qualified for judges. It remains that I acquaint the reader, that I have endeavoured in this play to follow the practice of the ancients, who, as Mr Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be our masters[9]. Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his art of poetry. --_Vos exemplaria Graeca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna._