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Theobald, Lewis, 1688-1744

"Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734)"


5: +Noston+.
6: +balon+.
7: +xoano+.
8: +Esde+.
9: +euanthe+.
10: +Philon+.]
I have mark'd, as before, my Corrections at the Side; and I may
venture to say, I have supported the faltring Verses both with
_Numbers_ and _Sense_. But who ever heard of _Evante_, as the Name
of a Man, in _Greece_? Neither is this Inscription a Piece of Ethnic
Devotion, as Sir _George_ has suppos'd it, to a Statue erected to
_Jupiter_: On the contrary, it despises those fruitless Superstitions.
_Philo_ (a _Christian_, as it seems to me;) sets it up, in Thanks
for a safe Voyage, to the _true God_. That all my Readers may
equally share in this little Poem, I have attempted to put it into
an _English_ Dress.
Invoke who Will the prosp'rous Gale _behind_,
_Jove_ at the _Prow_, while to the guiding Wind
O'er the blue Billows he the Sail expands,
Where _Neptune_ with each Wave heaps Hills of Sands:
Then let him, when the Surge he backward plows,
Pour to his Statue-God unaiding Vows:
But to the God of Gods, for Deaths o'erpast,
For Safety lent him on the watry Waste,
To native Shores return'd, thus _Philo_ pays
His Monument of Thanks, of grateful Praise.
I shall have no Occasion, I believe, to ask the Pardon of _some_
Readers for these _Nine_ last Pages; and Others may be so kind to
pass them over at their Pleasure. (Those Discoveries, which give
Light and Satisfaction to the truly Learned, I must confess, are
Darkness and Mystery to the less capable: +Phengos men xunetois,
axunetois d' Erebos+.


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