Horrentia Martis Arma,
Is worse than any of the rest. Horrentia is such a flat Epithete, as Tully wou'd have given us in his Verses. Tis a meer filler, to stop a vacancy in the Hexameter, and connect the Preface to the Work of Virgil. Our Author seems to sound a Charge, and begins like the clangour of a Trumpet;
Arma, virumque cano; Trojæ qui primus ab oris.
Scarce a word without an R, and the Vowels for the greater part sonorous. The Prefacer began with Ille ego, which he was constrain'd to patch up in the fourth Line with At nunc, to make the Sense cohere. And if both those words are not notorious Botches, I am much deceiv'd, though the French Translator thinks otherwise. For my own part, I am rather of Opinion, that they were added by Tucca and Varius, than Retrench'd.
I know it may be answer'd by such as think Virgil the Author of the four Lines; that he asserts his Title to the Æneis, in the beginning of this Work, as he did to the two former, in the last Lines of the fourth Georgic. I will not reply otherwise to this, than by desiring them to compare these four Lines with the four others; which we know are his, because no Poet but he alone could write them. If they cannot distinguish Creeping from Flying, let them lay down Virgil, and take up Ovid de Ponto in his stead. My Master needed not the assistance of that Preliminary Poet to prove his Claim. His own Majestick Meen discovers him to be the King, amidst a Thousand Courtiers. It was a superfluous Office, and therefore I wou'd not set
