which I bear to Your Lordship; and it will afford me very great Satisfaction if, as You have always given me Reafon to be, You give me Permiffion to profefs my felf,

My LORD,

Your Lordship's

moft Obedient and

moft Humble Servant,

DAVID LEWIS.

THE

PREFACE.

S the Order in which the following Poems are plac'd, has for the most part, been purely accidental; fo neither are the Pieces of the feveral Gentlemen who have contributed to the Work printed together, but scatter'd and interfpers'd throughout the whole. This I thought, fince no Author's Name was intended to be mention'd, might be done without making any Confufion; and probably occafion a more agreeable Variety.

What I have of my own are likewife anonymous, and difpofed in the fame manner with thofe of my Friends; and if, by not avowing the Parts that belong to us, They and I may feem to have been too careful to avoid Cenfure, I hope we shall be forgiven, when it shall be A 4

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nou

remember'd we at the fame time lay no Claim to Praife. Here all things will be try'd, though I cannot say how far all will bear it, by their own Value; they have before them no celebrated Names to pre-engage the Reader's Approbation, nor exploded ones to bespeak his Diflike. I shall only fay in general, that I have received my chiefeft Affiftance from a Sett a Sett of Gentlemen of both Univerfities now in London, one of which Number, a Fellow of Trinity-College in Cambridge, is Author of most of the Latin Compofitions, Were this a Place proper to be particu lar in my Acknowledgments, I should enlarge on the Obligations I have to thofe Gentlemen; but as the Bufinefs of a Preface is only to give an Account of the Work, I shall add no more than to wish, which I have no Reafon to mistrust, that the World may be as well well pleas'd with the good Senfe and Ingenuity of their Writing, as I am happy in their Converfation and Friendship.

A few Things in this Collection are owing to other learned Gentlemen, for whofe Favours I bear a juft Gratitude; and I am proud to own, I have selected a few from among fome Papers

of

"

of Poetry, in the Hands of one of the best-known and politeft Authors of this Age. I have taken the utmost Care I could, to fee that all had Fufice done them in the Prefs; and if I have ufed fome Liberties with the Pieces I receiv'd from fuch of my Affiftants as were too remote to be conferr'd with, for to all others I ftill com municated any Remark I had to offer) I hope it will be difcern'd there was nothing done out of Humour or Vanity, and therefore cannot doubt but they will be ingenuous enough not to be of fended.ad of rapor

430.4

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so I have admitted nothing which I knew to be before publish'd, except the Originals of two new Latin Verfions, which I thought was abfolutely neceffary to shew the fullness and Elegance of the Tranflations; and a Latin Epigram, which is oppos'd to the Imitation of it, as it is newly done in English. One Poem indeed of my own was before printed, of which were diffributed among my atance of a few Copies only; and one of another Author, inferted here from his own genuine Manuscript, is I am inform'd al ready got abroad; but, as he affures me, furreptitious and difguis'd.

As

As for the Latin Copies, it must be own'd it is not very ufual to have fo great a Number of them in our Mifcellanies: but 'tis hoped the Learned will be pleas'd to find them no fewer; and that the English Readers will at leaft excufe them, fince they may, perhaps, have given Occafion to fome of the best Things which fball here be met with in our own Language; for all of them, which are not themselves Verfions of former English, are tranflated, excepting the three little Pieces at the End: and I should ask Pardon of the Fair-Sex, that thofe are not; but they are of a particular Scholaftic Kind, not altogether fo proper for their Perufal.

I shall not go about to vindicate this Mifcellany in every Respect, for doubtless there are many Faults in it through my own Want of Judgment, and poffibly fome through the Miftakes of others; but if it has the good Fortune to be approv'd of in the main, I fhall think I have ReaSon to be extreamly well fatisfy'd with cess.

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