Reserate clusos regii postes Laris.
But he says of me, That being filled with the precedents of the Ancients who Writ their Plays in Verse, I commend the thing; declaring our language to be full, noble, and significant, and charging all the defects upon the ill placing of words; which I prove by quoting SENECA's loftily expressing such an ordinary thing as shutting the door.
Here he manifestly mistakes. For I spoke not of the Placing, but the Choice of words: for which I quoted that aphorism of JULIUS CAESAR, Delectus verborum est origo eloquentiae. But delectus verborum is no more Latin for the "Placing of words;" than Reserate is Latin for "Shut the door!" as he interprets it; which I, ignorantly, construed "Unlock or open it!"
He supposes I was highly affected with the Sound of these words; and I suppose I may more justly imagine it of him: for if he had not been extremely satisfied with the Sound, he would have minded the Sense a little better.
But these are, now, to be no faults. For, ten days after his book was published, and that his mistakes are grown so famous that they are come back to him, he sends his Errata to be printed, and annexed to his Play; and desires that instead of Shutting, you should read Opening, which, it seems, was the printer's fault. I wonder at his modesty! that he did not rather say it was SENECA's or mine: and that in some authors, Reserate was to Shut as well as to Open, as the word Barach, say the learned, is [in Hebrew] both to Bless and Curse.
Well, since it was the printer['s fault]; he was a naughty man, to commit the same mistake twice in six lines.
I warrant you! Delectus verborum for Placing of words, was his mistake too; though the author forgot to tell him of it. If it were my book, I assure you it should [be]. For those rascals ought to be the proxies of every Gentleman-Author; and to be chastised for him, when he is not pleased to own an error.
Yet, since he has given the Errata, I wish he would have enlarged them only a few sheets more; and then he would have spared me the labour of an answer. For this cursed printer is so given to mistakes, that there is scarce a sentence in the Preface without some false grammar, or hard sense [i.e., difficulty in gathering the meaning] in it; which will all be charged upon the Poet: because he is so good natured as to lay but three errors to the Printer's account, and to take the rest upon himself; who is better able to support them. But he needs not [to] apprehend that I should strictly examine those little faults; except I am called upon to do it. I shall return, therefore, to that quotation of SENECA; and answer not to what he writes, but to what he means.
I never intended it as an Argument, but only as an Illustration of what I had said before [p. 570] concerning the Election of words. And all he can charge me with, is only this, That if SENECA could make an ordinary thing sound well in Latin by the choice of words; the same, with like care, might be performed in English. If it cannot, I have committed an error on the right hand, by commending too much, the copiousness and well sounding of our language: which I hope my countrymen will pardon me. At least, the words which follow in my Dramatic Essay will plead somewhat in my behalf. For I say there [p. 570], That this objection happens but seldom in a Play; and then too, either the meanness of the expression may be avoided, or shut out from the verse by breaking it in the midst.
But I have said too much in the Defence of Verse. For, after all, 'tis a very indifferent thing to me, whether it obtain or not. I am content, hereafter to be ordered by his rule, that is, "to write it, sometimes, because it pleases me" [p. 575]; and so much the rather, because "he has declared that it pleases him."