With this account of my present undertaking, I conclude the first part of this discourse; in the second part, as at a second sitting, though I alter not the draught, I must touch the same features over again, and change the dead colouring of the whole.  In general I will only say, that I have written nothing which savours of immorality or profaneness; at least, I am not conscious to myself of any such intention.  If there happen to be found an irreverent expression, or a thought too wanton, they are crept into my verses through my inadvertency; if the searchers find any in the cargo, let them be staved or forfeited, like contraband goods; at least, let their authors be answerable for them, as being but imported merchandise, and not of my own manufacture.  On the other side, I have endeavoured to choose such fables, both ancient and modern, as contain in each of them some instructive moral, which I could prove by induction; but the way is tedious, and they leap foremost into sight, without the reader’s trouble of looking after them.  I wish I could affirm with a safe conscience, that I had taken the same care in all my former writings; for it must be owned, that supposing verses are never so beautiful or pleasing, yet if they contain anything which shocks religion, or good manners, they are at best, what Horace says of good numbers without good sense, Versus inopes rerum, nugaeque canorae.  Thus far, I hope, I am right in court, without renouncing my other right of self-defence, where I have been wrongfully accused, and my sense withdrawn into blasphemy or bawdry, as it has often been by a religious lawyer, in a late pleading against the stage, in which he mixes truth with falsehood, and has not forgotten the old rule of calumniating strongly, that something may remain.

I resume the thread of my discourse with the first of my translation, which was the first Iliad of Homer.  If it shall please God to give me longer life, and moderate health, my intentions are to translate the whole Ilias; provided still that I meet with those encouragements from the public which may enable me to proceed in my undertaking with some cheerfulness.  And this I dare assure the world beforehand, that I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil (though I say not the translation will be less laborious); for the Grecian is more according to my genius, than the Latin poet.  In the works of the two authors, we may read their manners and natural inclinations, which are wholly different.  Virgil was of a quiet, sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire.  The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words; Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties, both of numbers and of expressions, which his language, and the age in which he lived, allowed him:  Homer’s invention was more copious, Virgil’s more confined; so that if Homer had not led the way, it was not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry; for nothing can be more