Licensed, June 16, 1685. Rob. Midgley.
LONDON,
Printed by H. Clark, for Samuel Manship at the
Sign of the Black Bull in Cornhil, 1687.
TO THE WORSHIPFUL
Francis Bradbury, Esq;
The Judicious Philosopher Philo-Judæus, in his Book De Plantatione Noe, saith; That when God had made the whole World's Mass, he created Poets to celebrate and set out the Creator himself, and all his Creatures: such a high Estimate had he of those Genius of brave Verse. Another saith, that Poets were the first Politicians, the first Philosophers, and the first Historiographers. And although Learning and Poetick Skill were but very rude in this our Island, when it flourished to the height in Greece and Rome, yet since hath it made such improvement, that we come not behind any Nation in the World, both in Grandity and Gravity, in Smoothness and Propriety, in Quickness and Briefness; so that for Skill, Variety, Efficacy and Sweetness, the four material points required in a Poet, our English Sons of Apollo, and Darlings of the Delian Deity, may compare, if not exceed them
Whose victorious Rhime,
Revenge their Masters Death,
and conquer Time.
And indeed what is it that so masters Oblivion, and causeth the Names of the dead to live, as the divine Strains of sacred Poesie? How are the Names forgotten of those mighty Monarchs, the Founders of the Egyptian Pyramids, when that Ballad-Poet, Thomas Elderton, who did arm himself with Ale (as old Father Ennius did with Wine) is remembred in Mr. Cambden's Remains? having this made to his Memory, Hic situs est sitiens atque ebrius Eldertonus, Quid dico; hic situs est; hic potius sitis est.