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me witness, that I have not consideration enough for either of them to be angry: let Mævius and Bavius admire each other; I wish to be hated by them and their fellows, by the same reason for which I desire to be loved by you. And I leave it to the world, whether their judgment of my poetry ought to be preferred to your's; though they are as much prejudiced by their malice as I desire you should be led by your kindness, to be partial to,

SIR,

Your most humble

And most faithful servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

House, who was perhaps author of one of these pamphlets, and who had assisted the Duke of Buckingham in writing THE REHEARSAL. The author of THE CENSURE OF THE ROTA was, according to Wood, Richard Leigh, who had been bred at Queen's College, Oxford, and was at this time a player in the Duke of York's Company; but whether he was one of the wretched scribblers here alluded to, I am unable to ascertain; nor do I know who was meant by the Fastidius Brisk of Oxford.-Leigh's character seems to have nothing in common with Fungoso in EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR, except his being bred a student.

DEDICATION

OF

AM BOY NA.'

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH:"

MY LORD,

AFTER SO many favours, and those so great, conferred on me by your Lordship these many years, which I may call more properly one continued act of your generosity and goodness, I know not whether I should appear more ungrateful in my silence, or more extravagantly vain in my endeavours to acknowledge them; for since all acknowledgments bear a face of payment, it may be thought that I have flattered myself into an opinion of being able to return some part of my obligements to you; the just despair of which

This tragedy, which was acted at the Theatre Royal, was first printed in 1673, and must have been published between the 19th of June in that year, when Lord Clifford resigned the office of Lord High Treasurer, and the following September, when he died.

1 Thomas Lord Clifford, who together with Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale, formed the well-known junto denominated the CABAL, was a Roman Catholick, and about one year elder than our author,

attempt, and the due veneration I have for his person to whom I must address, have almost driven me to receive only with a profound submission the effects of that virtue which is never to be comprehended but by admiration; and the greatest note of admiration is silence. It is that noble passion to which poets raise their audience in highest subjects, and they have then gained over them the greatest victory, when they are ravished into a pleasure which is not to be expressed by words. To this pitch, my Lord, the sense of my gratitude had almost raised me ;-to receive your favours, as the Jews of old received their law, with a mute wonder,-to think, that the loudness of acclamation was only the praise of men to men, and that the secret homage of the soul was a greater mark of reverence than an outward ceremonious joy, which might be counterfeit, and must be irreverent in its tumult. Neither, my Lord, have I a particular right to pay you my acknowledgments; you have been a good so universal, that almost every man in three nations may think me injurious to his propriety, that I invade your praises in undertaking to celebrate them alone; and that have assumed to myself a patron, who was no more to

having been born August 1, 1630. On the 20th of April, 1672, he was created a peer, and on the 28th of November following, was appointed Lord Treasurer of England; which office he held only seven months. His character is given by Hume, in his History, vol. vii. p. 470, and more fully by Macpherson, vol. i. p. 123.

be circumscribed than the sun and elements, which are of publick benefit to human kind.

As it was much in your power to oblige all who could pretend to merit from the publick, so it was more in your nature and inclination. If any went ill-satisfied from the Treasury, while it was in your Lordship's management, it proclaimed the want of desert, and not of friends. You distributed your Master's favour with so equal hands, that Justice herself could not have held the scales more even; but with that natural propensity to do good, that had that treasure been your own, your inclination to bounty must have ruined you no man attended to be denied; no man bribed for expedition; want and desert were pleas sufficient. By your own integrity, and prudent choice of those whom you employed, the King gave all that he intended, and gratuities to his officers made not vain his bounty. This, my Lord, were you in your publick capacity of High Treasurer, to which you ascended by such degrees,* that your Royal Master saw your virtues still growing to his favours faster than they could rise to you. Both at home and abroad, with your sword* and with your counsel, you have served

your

2 Lord Clifford, previous to his promotion to the office of Lord High Treasurer, had been Comptroller and Treasurer of the Houshold, and one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury.

* In various sca-engagements with the Dutch, in 1665 and 1666.

him with unbiassed honour, and with unshaken resolution; making his greatness, and the true interest of your country, the standard and measure of your actions. Fortune may desert the wise and brave, but true virtue never will forsake itself. It is the interest of the world that virtuous men should attain to greatness, because it gives them the power of doing good; but when, by the iniquity of the times, they are brought to that extremity that they must either quit their virtue or their fortune, they owe themselves so much as to retire to the private exercise of their honour; to be great within, and by the constancy of their resolutions to teach the inferiour world how they ought to judge of such principles, which are asserted with so generous and so unconstrained a trial.

But this voluntary neglect of honours has been of rare example in the world. Few men have frowned first upon Fortune, and precipitated themselves from the top of her wheel, before they felt at least the declination of it. We read not of many emperors like Diocletian and Charles the Fifth, who have preferred a garden and a cloister before a crowd of followers, and the troublesome glory of an active life, (which robs the possessor of his rest and quiet,) to secure the safety and happiness of others. Seneca, with the help of his philosophy, could never attain to that pitch of virtue he only endeavoured to prevent his fall, by descending first; and offered to resign that wealth which he knew he could no longer hold.

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