There is no way of writing so proper, for the refining and polishing a Language, as the translating of Books into it, if he that undertakes it, has a competent skill of the one Tongue, and is a Master of the other. When a Man writes his own Thoughts, the heat of his Fancy, and the quickness of his Mind, carry him so much after the Notions themselves, that for the most part he is too warm to judge of the aptness of Words, and the justness of Figures; so that he either neglects these too much, or overdoes them: But when a Man translates, he has none of these Heats abouthim: and therefore the French took no ill Method, when they intended to reform and beautify their Language, in setting their best Writers on Work to translate the Greek and Latin Authors into it. There is so little praise got by Translations, that a Man cannot be engaged to it out of Vanity, for it has passed for a sign of a slow Mind, that can amuse it self with so mean an Entertainment; but we begin to grow wiser, and tho ordinary Translators must succeed ill in the esteem of the World, yet some have appeared of late that will, I hope, bring that way of writing in credit. The English Language has wrought it self out, both of the fulsome Pedantry under which it laboured long ago, and the trifling way of dark and unintelligible Wit that came after that, and out of the course extravagance of Canting that succeeded this: but as one Extream commonly produces another, so we were beginning to fly into a sublime pitch, of a strong but false Rhetorick, which had much corrupted, not only the Stage, but even the Pulpit; two places, that tho they ought not to be named together, much less to resemble one another; yet it cannot be denied, but the Rule and Measure of Speech is generally taken from them: but that florid strain is almost quite worn out, and is become now as ridiculous as it was once admired. So that without either the Expence or Labour that the French have undergone, our Language has, like a rich Wine, wrought out its Tartar, and [has] insensibly brought to a Purity that could not have been compassed without much labour, had it not been for the great advantage that we have of a Prince, who is so great a Judge, that his single approbation or dislike has almost as great an Authority over our Language, as his Prerogative gives him over our Coin. We are now so much refined, that how defective soever our Imaginations or Reasonings may be, yet our Language has fewer Faults, and is more natural and proper, than it was ever at any time before. When one compares the best Writers of the last Age, with these that excel in this, the difference is very discernable: even the great Sir Francis Bacon, that was the first that writ our Language correctly; as he is still our best Author, yet in some places has Figures so strong, that they could not pass now before a severe Judg. I will not provoke the present Masters of the Stage, by preferring the Authors of the last Age to them: for tho they all acknowledg that they come far short of B. Iohnson, Beamont and Fletcher, yet I believe they are better pleased to say this themselves, than to have it observed by others. Their Language is now certainly properer, and more natural than it was formerly, chiefly since the correction that was given by the Rehearsal; and it is to be hoped, that the Essay on Poetry, which may be well matched with the best Pieces of its kind that even Augustus’s Age produced, will have a more powerful Operation, if clear sense, joined with home but gentle Reproofs, can work more on our Writers, than that unmerciful exposing of them has done.

            I have now much leisure, and want diversion, so I have bestowed some of my hours upon Translations, in which I have proposed no ill Patterns to my self: but the Reader will be best able to judge whether I have copied skilfully after such Originals. This small Volume which I now publish, being writ by one of the greatest Men that this Island has produced, seemed to me to contain so many fine and well-digested Notions, that I thought it might be no unkind nor ill entertainment to the Nation, to put a Book in their Hands, to which they have so good a Title, and which has a very common fate upon it, to be more known and admired all the World over, than here at Home. It was once translated into English not long after it was written; and I was once apt to think it might have been done by Sir Thomas More himself: for as it is in the English of his Age, and not unlike his Stile; so the Translator has taken a liberty that seems too great for any but the Author himself, who is Master of his own Book, and so may leave out or alter his Original as he pleases: which is more than a Translator ought to do, I am sure it is more than I have presumed to do.

           It was writ in the Year 1516, as appears by the Date of the Letter of Peter Giles’s, in which he says, That it was sent him but a few days before from the Author, and that bears date the first of November that Year; but I cannot imagine how he comes to be called Sheriff of London in the Title of the Book, for in all our printed Catalogues of Sheriffs, his Name is not to be found. I do not think my self concerned in the Matter of his Book, no more than any other Translator is in his Author: nor do I think More himself went in heartily to that which is the chief Basis of his Utopia, the taking away of all Property, and the levelling the World; but that he only intended to set many Notions in his Reader’s way; and that he might not seem too much in earnest, he went so far out of all Roads to do it the less suspected: the earnestness with which he recommends the precaution used in Marriages among the Utopians, makes one think that he had a misfortune in his own choice, and that therefore he was so cautious on that Head; for the strictness of his Life covers him from severe Censures: His setting out so barbarous a practice, as the hiring of Assassinates to take off Enemies, is so wild and so immoral both, that it does not admit of any thing to soften or excuse it, much less to justify it; and the advising Men in some Cases to put an end to their Lives, notwithstanding all the Caution with which he guards it, is a piece of rough and fierce Philosophy. The tenderest part of the whole Work, was the representation he gives of Henry the Seventh’s Court; and his Discourses upon it, towards the end of the first Book, in which his Disguise is so thin, that the Matter would not have been much plainer if he had named him: But when he ventured to write so freely of the Father in the Son’s Reign, and to give such an Idea of Government under the haughtiest Prince, and the most impatient of uneasy Restraints that ever reigned in England, who yet was so far from being displeased with him for it, that as he made him long his particular Friend, so he employed him in all his Affairs afterwards, and raised him to be L. Chancellor, I thought I might venture to put it in more Modern English: for as the Translators of Plutarch’s Hero’s, or of Tullies Offices, are not concerned, either in the Maxims, or in the Actions that they relate; so I, who only tell, in the best English I can, what Sir Thomas More writ in very Elegant Latin, must leave his Thoughts and Notions to the Reader’s censure, and do think my self liable for nothing but the fidelity of the Translation, and the correctness of the English; and for that I can only say, that I have writ as carefully, and as well as I can.