e same design. Neither did I then intend it, but some
proposals being afterwards made me by my Bookseller, I desired his
lordship's leave that I might accept them, which he freely granted, and
I have his letter to shew for that permission. He resolved to have
printed his work, which he might have done two years before I could have
published mine; and had performed it, if death had not prevented him.
But having his manuscript in my hands, I consulted it as often as I
doubted of my author's sense; for no man understood Virgil better than
that learned nobleman. His friends have yet another, and more correct
copy of that translation by them, which if they had pleased to have
given the public, the judges might have been convinced that I have not
flattered him.'

Lord Lauderdale's friends, some years after the publication of Dryden's
Translation, permitted his lordship's to be printed, and, in the late
editions of that performance, those lines are marked with inverted
commas, which Dryden thought proper to adopt into his version, which are
not many; and however closely his lordship may have rendered Virgil, no
man can conceive a high opinion of that poet, contemplated through the
medium of his Translation.

Dr. Trapp, in his preface to the Aeneis, observes,
'that his lordship's Translation is pretty near to the original, though
not so close as its brevity would make one imagine; and it sufficiently
appears, that he had a right taste in poetry in general, and the Aeneid
in particular. He shews a true spirit, and, in many places, is very
beautiful. But we should certainly have seen Virgil far better
translated, by a noble hand, had the earl of Lauderdale been the earl of
Roscommon, and had the Scottish peer followed all the precepts, and been
animated with the genius of the Irish.'

We know of no other poetical compositions of this learned nobleman, and
the idea we have received from history of his character, is, that he was
in every respect the reverse of his uncle, from whence we may reasonably
conclude, that he possessed many virtues, since few statesmen of any age
ever were tainted with more vices than the duke of Lauderdale.

FOOTNOTE:
[1] Crawford's Peerage of Scotland.

* * * * *

DR. JOSEPH TRAPP

This poet was second son to the rev. Mr. Joseph Trapp, rector of
Cherington in Gloucestershire, at which place he was born, anno 1679. He
received the first rudiments of learning fro