SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE IMITATED

SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE IMITATED.

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The occasion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on some
of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full, and of more
dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of
much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof
with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat vice or folly, in
ever so low, or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable
to the princes and ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr.
Donne I versified, at the desire of the Earl of Oxford while he was Lord
Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury who had been Secretary of State,
neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on
those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater
error, than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good
reason to encourage, the mistaking a satirist for a libeller; whereas to a
true satirist nothing is so odious as a libeller, for the same reason as to
a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

UNI AEQUUS VIRTUTI ATQUE EJUS AMICIS. P.

Read next: THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE

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