If my friends expect any reason of the following composures, and of the first or second publication, I entreat them to accept of this account.

The title assures them that Poesy is not the business of my life; and if I seiz'd those hours of leisure, wherein my soul was in a more sprightly frame, to entertain them or myself, with a divine or moral song; I hope I shall find an easy pardon. In the First Book are many odes which were written to assist the meditations and worship of vulgar Christians, and with a design to be published in the volume of Hymns, which have now passed a second impression; but upon the review, I found some expressions that were not suited to the plainest capacity, and the metaphors are too bold to please the weaker Christian; therefore I have allotted them a place here.

Amongst the songs that are dedicated to Divine Love, I think I may be bold to assert, that I never composed one line of them with any other design than what they are applied to here; and I have endeavoured to secure them all from being perverted and debased to wanton passions, by several lines in them that can never be applied to a meaner love. Are not the noblest instances of the grace of Christ represented under the figure of a conjugal state, and described in one of the sweetest odes, and the softest pastoral that ever was written? I appeal to Solomon,* in his Song, and his father David, in Psalm xlv. if David was the author: and I am well assured, that I have never indulged an

Solomon's Song was much more in use among preachers and writers of divinity when these poems were written than it is now.

equal licence. It was dangerous to imitate the sacred writers too nearly, in so nice an affair.

The image of

The Poems sacred to Virtue, &c. were formed when the frame and humour of my soul was just suited to the subject of my verse. my heart is painted in them; and if they meet with a reader whose soul is a-kin to mine, perhaps they may agreeably entertain him. The dulness of the fancy, and coarseness of expression, will disappear; the sameness of the humour will create a pleasure, and insensibly overcome and conceal the defects of the Muse. Young gentlemen and ladies, whose genius and education have given them a relish of oratory and verse, may be tempted to seek satisfaction among the dangerous diversions of the stage, and impure sonnets, if there be no provision of a safer kind made to please them. While I have attempted to gratify innocent fancy in this respect, I have not forgotten to allure the heart to virtue, and to raise it to disdain of brutal pleasure. The frequent interposition of a devout thought may awaken the mind to a serious sense of God, religion, and eternity. The same duty that might be despised in a sermon, when proposed to their reason, may here, perhaps, seize the lower faculties with surprise, delight, and devotion, at once; and thus, by degrees, draw the superior powers of the mind to piety. Amongst the infinite numbers of mankind, there is not more difference in their outward shape and features, than in their temper and inward inclination. Some are more easily susceptive of religion in a grave discourse, and sedate reasoning. Some are best frighted from sin and ruin by terror, threatening,

and amazement; their fear is the properest passion to which we can address ourselves, and begin the divine work: others can feel no motive so powerful as that which applies itself to their ingenuity, and their polished imagination. Now I thought it lawful to take hold of any handle of the soul, to lead it away betimes from vicious pleasures; and if I could but make up a composition of virtue and delight, suited to the taste of well-bred youth, and a refined education, I had some hope to allure and raise them thereby above the vile temptations of degenerate nature, and custom that is yet more degenerate. When I have felt a slight inclination to satire or burlesque, I thought it proper to suppress it. The grinning and the growling Muse are not hard to be obtained, but I would disdain their assistance, where a manly invitation to virtue, and a friendly smile may be successfully employed. Could I persuade any man by a kinder method, I should never think it proper to scold or laugh at him.

Perhaps there are some morose readers, that stand ready to condemn every line that's written upon the theme of love; but have we not the cares and the felicities of that sort of social life represented to us in the sacred writings? Some expressions are there used with a design to give a mortifying influence to our softest affections: others again brighten the character of that state, and allure virtuous souls to pursue the divine advantage of it, the mutual assistance in the way to salvation. Are not the cxxviith and cxxviiith Psalms indited on this very subject? Shall it be lawful for the press

and the pulpit to treat of it with a becoming sqlemnity in prose, and must the mention of the same thing in poësy be pronounced for ever unlawful? Is it utterly unworthy of a serious character to write on this argument, because it has been unhappily polluted by some scurrilous pens? Why may I not be permitted to obviate a common and a growing mischief, while a thousand vile poems of the amorous kind swarm abroad, and give a vicious taint to the unwary reader? I would tell the world that I have endeavoured to recover this argument out of the hands of impure writers, and to make it appear, that virtue and love are not such strangers as they are represented. The blissful intimacy of souls in that state, will afford sufficient furniture for the gravest entertainment in verse: so that it need not be everlastingly dressed up in ridicule, nor assumed only to furnish out the lewd sonnets of the times. May some happier genius promote the same service that I proposed; and by superior sense, and sweeter sound, render what I have written contemptible and useless.

The Imitations of that noblest Latin poet of modern ages, Casimire Sarbiewski of Poland, would need no excuse, did they but arise to the beauty of the original. I have often taken the freedom to add ten or twenty lines, or leave out as many, that I might suit my song more to my own design, or because I saw it impossible to present the force, the fineness, and the fire of his expression in our language. There are a few copies wherein I borrowed some hints from the same author, without the mention of his name in the title. Methinks I

can allow so superior a genius now and then to be lavish in his imagination, and to indulge some excursions beyond the limits of sedate judgment; the riches and glory of his verse make atonement in abundance. I wish some English pen would import more of his treasures, and bless our nation.

The inscriptions to particular friends, are warranted and defended by the practice of almost all the lyric writers. They frequently convey the rigid rules of morality to the mind in the softer method of applause. Sustained by their example, a man will not easily be overwhelmed by the heaviest censures of the unthinking and unknown; especially when there is a shadow of this practice in the divine Psalmist, while he inscribes to Asaph or Jeduthun his songs that were made for the harp, or, which is all one, his lyric odes, though they are addressed to God himself.

In the 'poems of heroic measure,' I have attempted in rhyme the same variety of eadence, comma and period, which blank verse glories in, as its peculiar elegance and ornament. It degrades the excellency of the best versification when the lines run on by couplets, twenty together, just in the same pace, and with the same pauses. It spoils the noblest pleasures of the sound: the reader is tired with the tedious uniformity, or charmed to sleep with the unmanly softness of the numbers, and the perpetual chime of even cadences.

In the essays without rhyme,' I have not set up Milton for a perfect pattern; though he shall be for ever honoured as our deliverer from the bond. His works contain admirable and unequalled