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tection of your Majesty's most august and sacred Name ; a Patronage to which I think I have fome Right, as being the earliest, greatest,longest and at this Time I believe the only Sufferer in your Majefty's Dominions, for an unbyafs'd Zeal for the Security of the Succeffion of the Houfe of Hanover.

But if that Plea be too weak, of too little Efficacy even with your Majefty; yet thefe Inftitutions bring a Claim of their own, which is, that as they teach the moft noble, moft antient, and most useful of all Arts, as that is fo nearly concern'd in the forming the Manners, and refining the Spirit of your People, the Father

of

of his People cannot refuse his Smiles, and fuch Marks of his Favour, as may encourage great Genius's to apply themselves to it, and rival Antiquity; to do which, a Royal Patron is only wanting.

The Flourishing of Arts and Sciences is no lefs a Proof of the Glory of a great Prince and happy People, than the flourish, ing of Arms: The firft is indeed a greater, as the Ornaments and Benefits of Peace are more defirable than thofe of War A Nation in Peace, is in the State of Health; a Nation in War, is in a Course of Phyfic, which, tho' neceflary to purge and carry off the grols and noxious a 30

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Humours contracted in that State of Health, yet certainly none will think it preferable to the former. Upon thefe Grounds, and fupported by these Reasons, I lay this antient Mother of all Arts and Sciences, of all Moral and Political Knowledge at your Majefty's Feet, imploring your Protection both of that, and of,

Tour MAJESTY's,

most Humble and

Obedient Subject,

and Servant,

CHARLES GILDON.

THE

PREFACE

fhall not trouble the Reader with any long Difcourfe before the following Sheets, thinking it fufficient to inform him of the Caufe of my Writing them, the Method I have follow'd, and the Authors I have confulted in this Undertaking.,

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The Love, Value and Honour I have always had for an Art fo antient, fo illuftrious, and fo ufeful, as that of PoERTY, furnifh'd the Motive to my Labour. For I had long feen with Regret the Affurance of Pretenders to it, and the Abufes that from almost a total Ignorance of it, had brought it into a neglect with mest, and into a Contempt with Many, while the English World, that knew little of the Antients, judged of the Ex

a 4

Excellence of Poetry by the rude Draughts of the general Scriblers of the Age, and finding nothing great, nothing wonderful in thefe, unjustly conclude that the Art it felf is but a meer Trifle below a ferious Thought, which has drawn Diffuafives from our Study of it, from fo great and judicious a Perfon as Mr. Lock in his Difcourfe of Education. So different was his Opinion from that of Petronins Arbiter, who advifes all thofe who intend to apply their Minds to any thing great, to employ their first Approaches to Letters in the Study of Verfe. But Mr. Lock chiefly confidering the Education of an English Gentleman, juftly fuppos'd, that his Pupils Application to Poctical Writers, would fcarce ever light up that Fire, which fhould warm the Heart to great Actions, and the embracing of Virtues useful to the Public.

But if Mr. LOCK had been to write of this Art, and confider'd it as it was handed down to us from Homer, Virgil, Pindar, Horace, Sophocles, Euripides, and the like, he would with Milton, as great a Man as himfelf in all kind of Literature, have recommerded the Poets to the Study of his Pupil, as that admirable Poet does in his Difcourfe of Education to Mr. Hartlib; but Milton's Notion of Poetry, was not what will fit

our

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