LECTURES
ON
POETRY

Read in the SCHOOLS of

Natural Philosophy

At OXFORD,

By JOSEPH TRAPP, A.M.

Translated from the Latin,

With additional Notes.

LONDON:

Printed for C. Hitch and C. Davis in Pater-Noster-Row.

MDCCXLII.

[Pg i]

The Translator's Advertisement.

The following Lectures, being frequently referred to by theAuthor of them in the Preface and Notes to his Translation of Virgil,were thought proper to be communicated to the World in English,that both Works might speak the same Language as well as Sentiment, andaddress themselves to the same Sett of Readers. Whatever Reasons havebeen given for translating Virgil, and writing an EnglishComment on him, may be urged in behalf of these English Lectures,which as they are an Illustration of Poetry in general, so are they ofVirgil in particular.

The Notes to this Edition were chiefly added as it wentthrough the Press: In which though I sometimes differ from my ingenious Author,yet I hope not with greater Freedom than he has taken with others,and will pardon in me. I am well aware how easy it is to let someMistakes slip in the Heat of Composition: And when these had once pass'dthe Press, the Author, I suppose, was not very sollicitous to re-examineminutely the subsequent Editions; satisfied with the Approbation he hadreceived from that learned Body before whom his Lectures were firstdelivered. An Honour which I shall never wish to see diminish'dby any thing I can say, or any one else: And shall now therefore withmuch greater Pleasure take this Opportunity of repeating the[Pg ii]following Testimony of them from Mr. Felton's Preface to hisDissertation on Reading the Classics p. xxi, &c.

What a polite Critic may do, if he pleases, and in howdifferent an Aspect Criticism appears, when formed by Men of Parts and Fire, wemay see in the three Volumes of Dr. Trapp's PrӕlectionesPoeticӕ.A Work that cannot be enough commended, whether we considerthe Curiousness of his Observations, the Justness of his Remarks, theTruth and Importance of his Rules, the Aptness and Beauty of hisExamples, Force and Elegance of his Style, and the Penetration of hisWit and Judgment: A Piece in such Perfection of Beauty, that he givesthe Rules with the same Spirit we find in the Examples; and maketh thoseDissertations, which in heavy, formal Hands,w