I confefs 'tis a difficult province to make fubftantial maffy fenfe yield to the foftness of Poetry; and accordingly we find there are few Poems after the divine and moral way, but what are stiff, flat and infipid; but without this mixture, Poetry is nothing worth; and when it has it, it has all it can have, and is withal fo divine a thing, that even Plato, I fancy, would give it entertainment in his Commonwealth. I need not make any other apology for my converfing with the Mufes; for I do not think it an employment beneath the character of a scholar; and though I have, in a manner, now let up my outmoft pillar, yet I can't find in my heart to repent me of thofe few blank hours beftow'd in this exercife. For I have the example of fome of the greatest and wifeft in all ages to warrant me; and the greatnefs of Solomon is feen as much in his divine paftoral, the Canticles, as in his Proverbs or Sermons; and the wife Ben-Sirach, among other characters of his Heroes, puts in this among the reft, that they were fuch as found out mufical tunes, and recited verfes in writing, Ecclus. xliv. 5. And thus much for the verfe part. Concerning the Effays and Difcourfes, I have only this to fay. that I defign'd in them as much brevity and clearness as are confiftent with each other, and to abound in fenfe rather than words: I with all men would observe this in their writings more than they do. I'm fure the multude of books, and the fhortnefs of life require it; and fenfe will lye lye in a little compass, if men would be perfuaded to vent no notions but what they are mafters of; and were Angels to write, I fancy we should have but few Folio's. This is what I defign'd and endeavour'd in the whole. Whether I have attain'd it or no, I fubmit to the judgment of the candid and indifferent Reader. All-Souls Coll. June 1. 1678. J. NORRIS. The |