Patronage of the late Lord MACCLESFIELD. A Writer of fo much Spirit and Judgment had a juft Claim to the Protection of fo elevated a Genius, and fo judicious an Encourager of polite Learning. Longinus is now going to appear in an English Dress, and begs the Support of Your LORDSHIP'Ss Name. He has undergone no farther Alteration than what was abfolutely necessary to make him Englib. His Senfe is faithfully represented, but whether his Translation has any of the

ori

original Spirit, is a Decifion peculiar only to those who can relish unaffected Grandeur and natural Sublimity with the fame judicious Taste as Your Lordship.

It is needless to fay any thing to Your Lordship about the other Parts of this Performance, fince they alone can plead effectually for themfelves. I went through this Work animated with a View of pleasing every body, and publish it in fome fear of pleafing none. Yet I lay hold with pleasure on this Opportunity A 4

of

1

of paying my Refpects to Your Lordship, and giving this public Proof that I am, sit dur

200 a

My LORD,

Do Your Lordship's

moft obedient and

moft humble Servant,

WILLIAM SMITH.

PREFACE.

AST will without doubt be expected, that the Reader fhould be made privy tỏ

the Reasons upon which this Work

was undertaken, and is now made

public. The intrinfic Beauty of the Piece itself firft allured me to the Attempt, and a regard for the Public, efpecially for thofe who might be unable to read the Original, was the main Inducement to its Publication.

The Treatise on the SUBLIME had slept for feveral Ages, covered up in the Duft of Libraries, till the middle of the fixteenth Century. The first Latin Verfion by Gabriel de Petra was printed at Geneva in 1612. But the first good Tranflation of it into any modern Language was the French one of the famous Boileau, which tho' not always faithful to the Text, yet has an Elegance and a Spirit which few will ever be able to equal, much less to furpass.

The

The prefent Tranflation was finished before I knew of any prior Attempt to make Longinus Speak English. The first Tranflation of him I met with was published by Mr. Welfted in 1724. But I was very much furprized, upon a Perufal, to find it only Boileau's Translation mifrepresented and mangled. For every Beauty is impaired, if not totally effaced, and every Error (even down to thofe of the Printer) moft injuriously preferved.

"

I have fince accidentally met with two other English Verfions of this Treatife; one by J. Hall, Efq; London 1652; the other without a Name, but printed at Oxford in 1698, and faid in the Title-Page to have been compared with the French of Boileau. I faw nothing in either of thefe which did not yield the greatest Encouragement to a new Attempt.

No less than nine Years have intervened fince the finishing of this Tranflation, in which space. it has been frequently revifed, fubmitted to the Cenfure of Friends, and amended again and again by a more attentive study of the Original. The Defign was, if poffible, to make it read like an Original: Whether I have fucceeded in this, the bulk of my Readers may judge; but whether the Tranflation be good, or come any thing near to the Life, the Spirit, the Energy of Longinus,

is