HOLD, KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, &c. MY LORD, THE wishes and defires of all good men, which have attended your lordship from your first appearance in the world, are at length accomplished, from your obtaining thofe honours and dignities which you have fo long deferved. There are no factions, though irreconcileable to one another, that are not united in their affection to you, and the respect they pay you. They are equally pleafed in your profperity, and would be equally concerned in your afflictions. Titus Vefpafian was not more the delight of human kind. The univerfal empire made him only more known, and more powerful, but could not make him more beloved. He had greater ability of doing good, but your inclination to it is not lefs; and though you could not extend your beneficence to fo many perfons, yet you have loft as few days as that excellent emperor; and never had his complaint to make when you went to bed, that the fun had fhone upon you in vain, when you had the opportunity of relieving fome unhappy man. This, my lord, has justly acquired you as many friends as there are perfons who have the honour to be known to you. Mere acquaintance you have none; you have drawn them all into a nearer line; and they who have converfed with you are for ever after inviolably yours. This is a truth fo generally acknowledged, that it needs no proof: it is of the nature of a firft principle, which is received as foon as it is proposed; and needs not the reformation which Defcartes used to his; for we doubt not, neither can we properly fay, we think we admire and love you above all other mcn; there is a certainty in the propofition, and we know it. With the fame affurance I can fay, you neither have enemies, nor can fcarce have any; for they who have never heard of you, can neither love or hate you; and they who have, can have no other notion of you, than that which they receive from the public, that you are the beft of men. After this, my teftimony can be of no farther ufe, than to declare it to be day-light at highnoon; and all who have the benefit of fight, can look up as well, and fee the fun. It is true, I have one privilege which is almoft particular to myself, that I faw you in the eaft at your firft arifing above the hemifphere: I was as foon fenfible as any man of that light, when it was but juft Shooting out, and beginning to travel upwards to the meridian. I made my early addreffes to your lordfhip, in my "Effay of Dramatic Poetry ;" and therein bespoke you to the world, wherein I have the right of a firft difcoverer. 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 outlines of an art, without any living mafter to inftruct me in it; an art which had been better praised than studied here in England, wherein Shakspeare, who created the ftage 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 to 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 vaft ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage amongst the moderns, which are extremely different from ours, by reafon of their oppofite taste; yet even then, I had the prefumption to dedicate to your lordship-a very unfinished piece, I muft confefs, and which only can be excufed by the little experience of the author, and the modesty of the title "An Effay." Yet I was stronger in prophecy than I was in criticifin; I was infpired to foretell you to mankind, as the reftorer 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 otherwife. |