To the Reader.

ODes I have called these, the first of my few Poems; which how happy soever they prove, yet Criticism itself cannot say, That the name is wrongfully usurped. For (not to begin with Definitions, against the Rule of Oratory; nor ab ovo, against the Prescript of Poetry in a poetical argument: but somewhat only to season thy palate with a slight description) an Ode is known to have been properly a Song moduled to the ancient harp: and neither too short-breathed, as hastening to the end; nor composed of [the] longest verses, as unfit for the sudden turns and lofty tricks with which Apollo used to menage it.

They are, as the Learned say, divers:

Some transcendently lofty; and far more high than the Epic, commonly called the Heroic, Poem—witness those of the inimitable Pindarus consecrated to the glory and renown of such as returned in triumph from [the Games at] Olympus, Elis, Isthmus, or the like.

Others, among the Greeks, are amorous, soft, and made for chambers; as others for theatres: as were Anacreon's, the very delicacies of the Grecian Erato; which Muse seemed to have been the Minion of that Teian old man, which composed them.

Of a mixed kind were Horace's. And [we] may truly therefore call these mixed; whatsoever else are mine: little partaking of the high dialect of the first

nor altogether of Anacreon; the Arguments being amorous, moral, or what else the Muse pleaseth.

To write much in this kind neither know I how it will relish: nor, in so doing, can I but injuriously presuppose ignorance or sloth in thee; or draw censure upon myself for sinning against the decorum of a Preface, by reading a Lecture, where it is enough to sum the points. New they are, and the work of Playing Hours: but what other commendation is theirs, and whether inherent in the subject, must be thine to judge.

But to act the Go-Between of my Poems and thy applause, is neither my modesty nor confidence: that, oftener than once, have acknowledged thee, kind; and do not doubt hereafter to do somewhat in which I shall not fear thee, just. And would, at this time, also gladly let thee understand what I think, above the rest, of the last Ode of the number; or, if thou wilt, Ballad in my book. For both the great Master of Italian rymes Petrarch, and our Chaucer, and others of the Upper House of the Muses, have thought their Canzons honoured in the title of a Ballad: which for that I labour to meet truly therein with the old English garb, I hope as ably to justify as the learned Colin Clout his Roundelay.

Thus requesting thee, in thy better judgment, to correct such faults as have escaped in the printing; I bid thee farewell.

[M. Drayton.]