at breathes; the various progeny,
Stung with delight, is goaded on by thee.
O'er barren mountains, o'er the flowery plain,
The leafy forest, and the liquid main,
Extends thy uncontroll'd and boundless reign;
Through all the living regions dost thou move,
And scatter'st, where thou goest, the kindly seeds of love.
Since, then, the race of every living thing
Obeys thy power; since nothing new can spring
Without thy warmth, without thy influence bear,
Or beautiful or lovesome can appear;
Be thou my aid, my tuneful song inspire,
And kindle with thy own productive fire;
While all thy province, Nature, I survey,
And sing to Memmius an immortal lay
Of heaven and earth, and every where thy wondrous power display:
To Memmius, under thy sweet influence born,
Whom thou with all thy gifts and graces dost adorn;
The rather then assist my muse and me,
Infusing verses worthy him and thee.
Meantime on land and sea let barbarous discord cease,
And lull the listening world in universal peace.
To thee mankind their soft repose must owe,
For thou alone that blessing canst bestow;
Because the brutal business of the war
Is managed by thy dreadful servant's care;
Who oft retires from fighting fields, to prove
The pleasing pains of thy eternal love;
And panting on thy breast, supinely lies,
While with thy heavenly form he feeds his eyes.
When, wishing all, he nothing can deny,
Thy charms in that auspicious moment try;
With winning eloquence our peace implore,
And quiet to the weary world restore."

Excellent English! and excellently representative of the Latin!

Dryden sometimes estranges his language from vulgar use by a Latinism;
(he, himself, insists upon this, as a deliberate act of enriching our poor
and barbarous tongue;) and in his highest writings, even where he has good
matter that will sustain itself at due poetical height, here and there he
has touches of an ornamental, imitative, and false poetical diction. But
that is not his own style--not the style which he uses where he is fully
himself. This is pure English, simple, masculine; turned into poetry by a
true life of expression, and by the inhering melody of the numbers. That
Lucretian Exordium he must have written in one of his happiest
veins--under the sting of the poetical oestrum. It is an instance where
he was called to his task by desire.

In his greatest undertaking--his Translation of Virgil--he