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Fin my effay of Dramatic Poetry; and therein bespoke you to the world, wherein I have the right of a first discoverer. When I was myself in the rudiments of my Poetry, without name or reputation in the world, having rather the ambition of a writer, than the skill; when I was drawing the out-lines of an art, without any living mafter to inftruct me in it; an art which had been better praised than ftudied here in England, wherein Shakespeare, who created the stage among us, had rather written happily, than knowingly and justly: and Jonfon, who, by ftudying Horace, had been acquainted with the rules, yet feemed to envy pofterity that knowledge, and like an inventor of fome useful art, to make a monopoly of his learning when thus, as I may fay, before the ufe of the loadstone, or knowledge of the compafs, I was failing in a vast ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French ftage amongst the moderns, which are extremely different from ours, by reason of their oppofite tafte; yet, even then, I had the prefumption to dedicate to your Lordfhip: a very unfinished piece, I must confefs, and which only can be excused by the little experience of the author, and the modefty of the title, An Effay. Yet I was stronger in prophecy than I was in criticism; I was infpired to foretel you to mankind, as the restorer of Poetry, the greatest genius, the trueft judge, and the best patron.

Good fenfe and good nature are never feparated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good nature, by which I mean beneficence and can

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dor, is the product of right reafon; which of neceffity will give allowance to the failings of others, by confidering that there is nothing perfect in mankind; and, by distinguishing that which comes nearest to excellency, though not abfolutely free from faults, will certainly produce a candor in the judge. It is incident to an elevated understanding, like your Lordship's, to find out the errors of other men: but it is your prerogative to pardon them; to look with pleasure on those things, which are fomewhat congenial, and of a remote kindred to your own conceptions: and to forgive the many failings of those, who, with their wretched art, cannot arrive to thofe heights that you poffefs from a happy, abundant, and native genius; which are as inborn to you, as they were to Shakespeare; and, for aught I know, to Homer; in either of whom we find all arts and fciences, all moral and natural philofophy, without knowing that they ever ftudied them.

There is not an English writer this day living, who is not perfectly convinced, that your Lordship excels all others, in all the feveral parts of Poetry which you have undertaken to adorn. The most vain, and the moft ambitious of our age, have not dared to affume fo much, as the competitors of Themistocles: they have yielded the first place without difpute; and have been arrogantly content to be efteemed as fecond to your Lordship; and even that alfo with a "longe fed "proximi intervallo." If there have been, or are any, who go farther in their felf-conceit, they must be very fingular in their opinion: they must be like the

Officer

Officer in a play, who was called Captain, Lieutenant, and Company. The world will easily conclude, whether fuch unattended generals can ever be capable of making a revolution in Parnasius.

I will not attempt, in this place, to fay any thing particular of your Lyric Poems, though they are the delight and wonder of this age, and will be the envy of the next. The fubject of this book confines me to fatyr; and in that, an author of your own quality, (whofe ashes.I fhall not disturb) has given you all the commendation, which his felf-fufficiency could afford to any man: "The best good man, with the worst"natured Mufe." In that character, methinks, I am reading Jonfon's verfes to.the memory of Shakespeare: an infolent, fparing, and invidious panegyric: where good-nature, the most godlike commendation of a man, is only attributed to your perfon, and denied to your writings for they are every where fo full of candor, that, like Horace, you only expofe the follies of men, without arraigning their vices; and in this excel him, that you add that pointedness of thought, which is vifibly wanting in our great Roman. There is more of falt in all your verses, than I have feen in any of the moderns, or even of the ancients: but you have been sparing of the gall; by which means you have pleafed all readers, and offended none. Donne alone, of all our countrymen, had your talent; but was not happy enough to arrive at your verfification. And were he tranflated into numbers and English, he would yet be wanting in the dignity of expreffion. That

which is the prime virtue and chief ornament of Virgil, which diftinguishes him from the rest of writers, is fo confpicuous in your verses, that it cafts a fhadow on all your contemporaries; we cannot be feen, or but obfcurely, while you are present. You equal Donne in the variety, multiplicity, and choice of thoughts; you excel him in the manner, and the words. I read you both with the fame admiration, but not with the fame delight. He affects the metaphyfics, not only in his fatires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair fex with nice speculations of philofophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the foftnefs of love. In this (if I may be pardoned for fo bold a truth) Mr. Cowley has copied him to a fault; fo great a one, in my opinion, that it throws his miftrefs infinitely below his Pindariques, and his latter compofitions, which are undoubtedly the best of his poems, and the most correct. For my own part, I must avow it freely to the world, that I never attempted any thing in fatyr, wherein I have not studied your writings as the most perfect model. I have continually laid them before me; and the greatest commendation, which my own partiality can give to my productions, is, that they are copies, and no farther to be allowed, than as they have something more or lefs of the original. Some few touches of your Lordship, fome fecret · graces which I have endeavoured to exprefs after your manner, have made whole poems of mine to pafs with approbation: but take your verses altogether, and they

are

are inimitable.

If therefore I have not written better,

it is because you have not written more. You have not fet me fufficient copy to transcribe; and I cannot add one letter of my own invention, of which I have not the example there.

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It is a general complaint against your Lordship, and I must have leave to upbraid you with it, that, because you need not write, you will not. Mankind that wishes you fo well, in all things that relate to your profperity, have their intervals of withing for themfelves, and are within a little of grudging you the fullnefs of your fortune: they would be more malicious if you used it not fo well, and with fo much generosity. Fame is in itself a real good, if we may believe Cicero, who was perhaps too fond of it. But even fame, as Virgil tells us, acquires ftrength by going forward. Let Epicurus give indolence as an attribute to his gods, and place in it the happiness of the bleft: the divinity which we worship has given us not only a precept against it, but his own example to the contrary. The world, my Lord, would be content to allow you a feventh day for reft; or, if you thought that hard upon you, we would not refuse you half your time: if you come out, like fome great monarch, to take a town but once a year, as it were for your diverfion, though you had no need to extend your territories: in fhort, if you were a bad, or which is worse, an indifferent poet, we would thank you for our own quiet, and not expofe you to the want of yours. But when you are fo great and fo fuccefsful, and when we have

.that

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