lying in his choice of Words, I am excluded from it by the narrow compass of our Heroick Verse, unless I wou'd make use of Monosyllables only, and those clog'd with Consonants, which [Page] are the dead weight of our Mother-Tongue. 'Tis possible, I confess, though it rarely happens, that a Verse of Monosyllables may sound harmoniously; and some Examples of it I have seen. My first Line of the Aeneis is not harsh:
Arms, and the Man I Sing, who forc'd by Fate, &c.
But a much better instance may be given from the last Line of Manilius, made English by our Learned and Judicious Mr. Creech.
Nor could the World have born so fierce a Flame.
Where the many Liquid Consonants are plac'd so Artfully, that they give a pleasing sound to the Words, though they are all of one Syllable.
Tis true, I have been sometimes forc'd upon it in other places of this Work, but I never did it out of choice: I was either in haste, or Virgil gave me no occasion for the Ornament of Words; for it seldom happens but a Monosyllable Line turns Verse to Prose, and even that Prose is rugged, and unharmonious. Philarchus, I remember, taxes Balzac for placing Twenty Monosyllables in file, without one Dissyllable betwixt them. The way I have taken, is not so streight as Metaphrase, nor so loose as Paraphrase: Some things too I have omitted, and sometimes have added of my own. Yet the omissions I hope, are but of Circumstances, and such as wou'd have no grace in English; and the Additions, I also hope, are easily deduc'd from Virgil's Sense. They will seem (at least I have the Vanity to think so), not stuck into him, but
