Which made them, though it were in spight
Of nature and their stars, to write.

On the one side some who have had very little human learning,
but were endued with a large share of natural wit and parts,
have become the most celebrated (Shakespear, D'Avenant, &c.)
poets of the age they lived in. But, as these last are, "Rarae aves
in terris," so, when the muses have not disdained the assistances
of other arts and sciences, we are then blessed with those lasting
monuments of wit and learning, which may justly claim a kind
of eternity upon earth. And our author, had his modesty
permitted him, might, with Horace, have said,

Exegi monumentum aere perennius:
[I have raised a memorial more lasting than bronze]

Or, with Ovid,

Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis,
Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.
[For I have raised a work which neither the rage of Jupiter,
Nor fire, nor iron, nor consuming age can destroy.]

The Author of this celebrated Poem was of this his last
composition: for although he had not the happiness of an
academical education, as some affirm, if may be perceived,
throughout his whole Poem, that he had read much, and was
very well accomplished in the most useful parts of human
learning.