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The First PART.

WRITTEN

In the Time of the

Late Wars.

Corrected and Amended,

With Several

ADDITIONS and ANNOTATIONS.

LONDON:

Printed by J. M. for Geo. Sawbridge;
and Sold by Matth. Hawkins, at the
Angel in St. Paul's Church-Yard. $709.

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READER.

P

Oeta nafcitur, non fit,is a Sentence

of as great Truth as Antiquity; it being moft certain, that all the acquir'd Learning imaginable is infufficient to compleat a Poet, without a Natural Genius and Propenfity to fo Noble and Sublime an Art. And we may without Offence obferve, that many very Learned Men, who have been ambitious to be thought Poets, have only render'd themselves Obnoxious to that Satyrical Infpiration, our Author wittily invokes

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Shakespear, D'Ave

nant, &c.

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On the other fide, fome who have had very little Human Learning, but were endued with a large share of Natural Wit and Parts, have become the most Celebrated Poets of the Age they lived in. But as thefe laft are Rara Aves in terris, fo when the Mufes have not difdained the Affistances of other Arts and Sciences, we are then bless'd with those lasting Monuments of Wit and Learning, which may justly claim a kind of Eternity upon Earth. And our Author, had his Modesty permitted him, might with Horace, have faid,

Exegi Monumentum Ære perennius;

Or with Ovid,

Jamque opus Exegi, quod pec Jovis ira, nec ignis,

Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere Vetuftas.

The

The Author of this Celebrated Poem, was of this laft Compofition; for altho' be had not the Hippinefs of an Academical Education, as fome affirm, it may be perceiv'd, throughout his whole Poem, that be bad read much, and was very well accomplished in the most useful Parts of Human Learning.

Rapin (in his Reflections) Speaking of the neceffary Qualities belonging to a Poet; tells us, he must have a Genius extraordinary, great Natural Gifts; a Wit, juft, fruitful, piercing, folid and univerfal; an Understanding, clean and dif tinet; an Imagination, neat and pleasant; an Elevation of Soul, that depends not only on Art or Study, but is purely a Gift of Heaven, which must be fuftain'd by a lively Senfe and Vivacity; Judgment to confider wifely of Things, and Vivacity for the Beautiful Expreffion of them, &c.

Now, how justly this Character is due to our Author, I leave to the Impartial Reader, and thofe of nicer Judgments, who A 3

bad

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