success, but I am sure with diligence enough: my images are many of them
copied from him, and the rest are imitations of him. My expressions
also are as near as the idioms of the two languages would admit of in
translation. And this, sir, I have done with that boldness, for which I
will stand accountable to any of our little critics, who, perhaps, are
no better acquainted with him than I am. Upon your first perusal of this
poem, you have taken notice of some words which I have innovated (if it
be too bold for me to say refined) upon his Latin; which, as I offer not
to introduce into English prose, so I hope they are neither improper,
nor altogether inelegant in verse; and, in this, Horace will again
defend me.

Et nova, fictaque nuper, habebunt verba fidem, si
Græco fonte cadunt, parcè detorta--

The inference is exceeding plain: for if a Roman poet might have liberty
to coin a word, supposing only that it was derived from the Greek, was
put into a Latin termination, and that he used this liberty but seldom,
and with modesty; how much more justly may I challenge that privilege to
do it with the same prerequisites, from the best and most judicious of
Latin writers! In some places, where either the fancy or the words were
his, or any other's, I have noted it in the margin, that I might not
seem a plagiary; in others I have neglected it, to avoid as well
tediousness, as the affectation of doing it too often. Such descriptions
or images well wrought, which I promise not for mine, are, as I have
said, the adequate delight of heroic poesy; for they beget admiration,
which is its proper object; as the images of the burlesque, which is
contrary to this, by the same reason beget laughter: for the one shows
nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all
admire; the other shows her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a