And claim a title to the fields of peace. But if Æneas be obliged, no less Your kindness great Achilles doth confess; Who, dressed by Statius in too bold a look, Did ill become those virgin robes he took.[6] To understand how much we owe to you, We must your numbers, with your author's, view: Then we shall see his work was lamely rough, Each figure stiff, as if designed in buff; His colours laid so thick on every place, As only showed the paint, but hid the face. But, as in perspective, we beauties see, Which in the glass, not in the picture, be; So here our sight obligingly mistakes That wealth, which his your bounty only makes. Thus vulgar dishes are, by cooks, disguised, More for their dressing than their substance prized. Your curious notes[7] so search into that age, When all was fable but the sacred page, That, since in that dark night we needs must stray, We are at least misled in pleasant way. But, what we most admire, your verse no less The prophet than the poet doth confess. Ere our weak eyes discerned the doubtful streak Of light, you saw great Charles his morning break:[8] So skilful seamen ken the land from far, Which shows like mists to the dull passenger. To Charles your muse first pays her duteous love, As still the ancients did begin from Jove; With Monk you end,[9] whose name preserved shall be, As Rome recorded Rufus' memory; Who thought it greater honour to obey His country's interest, than the world to sway.[10] But to write worthy things of worthy men, Is the peculiar talent of your pen; Yet let me take your mantle up, and I Will venture, in your right, to prophecy:-- "This work, by merit first of fame secure, Is likewise happy in its geniture;[11] For since 'tis born when Charles ascends the throne, It shares at once his fortune and its own." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: Used for _elaborate composition_.] [Footnote 3: Some of Sir Robert Howard's songs were set to music. One of them, beginning, "O Charon, gentle Charon," is quoted as a popular air in one of Shadwell's plays.] [Footnote 4: Rete Mirabile. DRYDEN.] [Footnote 5: Sir Robert Howard's collection contains a translation of the Fourth Book of the Æneid, under the title of "The Loves of Dido and Æneas."] [Footnote 6: Sir Robert also translated the Achilleis of Statius, an author whom Dryden seldom mentions without censuring his turgid and bombastic style of poetry. The story of this neglected epic turns on the juvenile adventures of Achilles.] [Footnote 7: The annotations on the Achilleis.]