[20] See the Preface to “A Funeral Idyll, sacred to the glorious Memory of King William III.,” by Mr. Oldmixon.

“In the Idyll on the peace, I made the first essay to throw off rhymes, and the kind reception that poem met with, has encouraged me to attempt it again.  I have not been persuaded by my friends to change the Idyll into Idyllium; for having an English word set me by Mr. Dryden, which he uses indifferently with the Greek, I thought it might be as proper in an English poem.  I shall not be solicitous to justify myself to those who except against his authority, till they produce me a better:  I have heard him blamed for his innovations and coining of words, even by persons who have already been sufficiently guilty of the fault they lay to his charge; and shown us what we are to expect from them, were their names as well settled as his.  If I had qualifications enough to do it successfully, I should advise them to write more naturally, delicately, and reasonably themselves, before they attack Mr. Dryden’s reputation; and to think there is something more necessary to make a man write well, than the favour of the great, or the success of a faction.  We have every year seen how fickle Fortune has been to her declared favourites; and men of merit, as well as he who has none, have suffered by her inconstancy, as much as they got by her smiles.  This should alarm such as are eminently indebted to her, and may be of use to them in their future reflections on others’ productions, not to assume too much to themselves from her partiality to them, lest, when they are left like their predecessor, it should only serve to render them the more ridiculous.”

[21] “Homer in a Nutshell,” (16th Feb.) 1700-9, by Samuel Parker, Gent.

“Preface.—­Ever since I caught some termagant ones in a club, undervaluing our new translation of Virgil, I’ve known both what opinion I ought to harbour, and what use to make of them; and since the opportunity of a digression so luckily presents itself, I shall make bold to ask the gentlemen their sentiments of two or three lines (to pass over a thousand other instances) which they may meet with in that work.  The fourth Aeneid says of Dido, after certain effects of her taking shelter with Aeneas in the cave appear,

  Conjuijium vocat, hoc proetexit lomine culpam, V. 172,

which Mr. Dryden renders thus: 

  She called it marriage, by that specious name
  To veil the crime, and sanctify the shame.

Nor had he before less happily rendered the 39th verse of the second Aeneid: 

  Scinditur in certum studia in contraria vulgus.

  The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,
  With noise, say nothing, and in parts divide.

“If these are the lines which they call flat and spiritless, I wish mine could be flat and spiritless too!  And, therefore, to make short work, I shall only beg Mr. Dryden’s leave to congratulate him upon his admirable flatness, and dulness, in a rapture of poetical indignation: