Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, Poeta salutor?

For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea, yet I have
thought it no shame to learn: and if I have made some few mistakes, it
is only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted opportunity
to correct them; the whole poem being first written, and now sent you
from a place, where I have not so much as the converse of any seaman.
Yet though the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was more than
recompensed by the pleasure. I found myself so warm in celebrating the
praises of military men, two such especially as the prince[36] and
general, that it is no wonder if they inspired me with thoughts above my
ordinary level. And I am well satisfied, that, as they are incomparably
the best subject I ever had, excepting only the royal family, so also,
that this I have written of them is much better than what I have
performed on any other. I have been forced to help out other arguments;
but this has been bountiful to me: they have been low and barren of
praise, and I have exalted them, and made them fruitful; but
here--_Omnia sponte suâ reddit justissima tellus_. I have had a large, a
fair, and a pleasant field; so fertile that, without my cultivating, it
has given me two harvests in a summer, and in both oppressed the reaper.
All other greatness in subjects is only counterfeit; it will not endure
the test of danger; the greatness of arms is only real; other greatness
burdens a nation with its weight, this supports it with its strength.
And as it is the happiness of the age, so it is the peculiar goodness of
the best of kings, that we may praise his subjects without offending
him. Doubtless, it proceeds from a just confidence of his own virtue,
which the lustre of no other can be so great as to darken in him; for
the good or the valiant are never safely praised under a bad or a
degenerate prince. But to return from this digression to a further
account of my poem; I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have