[47] Mainburg's "History of the League," translated by our author, at the command of Charles II.
[48] First published in 1680.
[49] Sir Peter Lely, by birth a Dutchman, came to England in 1641, and died in 1680. There is a remarkable similarity between his female portraits, which seems to have arisen from the circumstance mentioned by Dryden, of his bringing all his subjects as near as possible to his own idea of the beautiful. Pope's lines in his praise are too well known to be quoted.
[50] Annibale Caro died at Rome, 1566.
[51] He died in the year of Rome 699, before the commencement of the Augustan age.
[52] The celebrated Hobbes, who died in 1679.
[53] I wish our author had attended to his noble friend Roscommon's recommendation:
Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense;
What moderate fop would range the Park, or stews,
Who among troops of faultless nymphs might chuse?
[54] This error, however, went through the subsequent editions.
[55] Thomas Creech, a particular friend of our author. He was born in 1659, and in June 1700 committed suicide; for which rash action no adequate cause has been assigned. Besides the translation of Lucretius, which is his principal work, he executed an indifferent version of Horace, and translated parts of Theocritus, Ovid, Juvenal, Virgil, &c. In his translation of Lucretius, he omitted the indelicate part of the Fourth Book; a deficiency which Dryden thought fit to supply, for which he has above assigned some very inadequate reasons. Creech's Lucretius first appeared at Oxford, in 8vo, 1682, and was reprinted in the year following. The annotations, to which our author alludes a little lower, were originally attached to a Latin edition of Lucretius, superintended by Creech, and afterwards transferred to his English version. They display great learning, and an intimate acquaintance with the Epicurean philosophy.