_LONDON_:
Printed for J. ROBERTS, near the _Oxford-Arms_
in _Warwick-Lane_. MDCCXXXIX.






LETTER I.


_SIR,_

I am now going to obey your Commands; but you must let me do it in my
own way, that is, write as much, or as little at a time as I may have
an Inclination to, and just as things offer themselves. After this
manner you may receive in a few Letters, all that I have said to you
about poetical Translations, and the resemblance there is between
_Virgil's_ and _Milton's_ Versification, and some other Matters of the
same nature.

To begin with the Business of Translation.

Whoever sits down to translate a Poet, ought in the first place to
consider his Author's peculiar _Stile_; for without this, tho' the
Translation may be very good in all other respects, it will hardly