EPISTLE DEDICATORY

To the Right Honourable Thomas, Earl of Danby, Viscount
Latimer, and Baron Osborne of Kiveton in Yorkshire, Lord
High Treasurer of England, One of His Majesty’s Most
Honourable Privy Council, and Knight of the Most Noble
Order of the Garter, etc.	5
My Lord,
The gratitude of poets is so troublesome a virtue to great
men that you are often in danger of your own benefits, for
you are threatened with some epistle, and not suffered to do
good in quiet, or to compound for their silence whom you	10
have obliged. Yet, I confess, I neither am nor ought to be
surprised at this indulgence, for your Lordship has the same
right to favour poetry which the great and noble have ever
had:
Carmen amat, quisquis carmine digna gerit.	15
There is somewhat of a tie in nature betwixt those who
are born for worthy actions and those who can transmit them
to posterity, and though ours be much the inferior part, it
comes at least within the verge of alliance; nor are we unprofitable
members of the commonwealth, when we animate others to those	20
virtues which we copy and describe from you.
’Tis indeed their interest who endeavour the subversion of
governments to discourage poets and historians, for the best
which can happen to them is to be forgotten: but such who,
under kings, are the fathers of their country, and by a just	25
and prudent ordering of affairs preserve it, have the same
reason to cherish the chroniclers of their actions as they have
to lay up in safety the deeds and evidences of their estates,
for such records are their undoubted titles to the love and
reverence of after ages. Your Lordship’s administration has	30
already taken up a considerable part of the English annals,
and many of its most happy years are owing to it. His Majesty,
the most knowing judge of men and the best master, has
acknowledged the ease and benefit he receives in the incomes
of his Treasury, which you found not only disordered but	35
exhausted. All things were in the confusion of a chaos,
without form or method, if not reduced beyond it even to
annihilation, so that you had not only to separate the jarring
elements, but (if that boldness of expression might be allowed
me) to create them. Your enemies had so embroiled the	40
management of your office that they looked on your advancement
as the instrument of your ruin. And, as if the clogging
of the revenue and the confusion of accounts which you
found in your entrance were not sufficient, they added their
own weight of malice to the public calamity by forestalling	45
the credit which should cure it. Your friends on the other
side were only capable of pitying, but not of aiding you. No
farther help or counsel was remaining to you but what was
founded on yourself, and that indeed was your security: for
your diligence, your constancy, and your prudence wrought	50
more surely within when they were not disturbed by any
outward motion. The highest virtue is best to be trusted with
itself, for assistance only can be given by a genius superior to
that which it assists. And ’tis the noblest kind of debt when
we are only obliged to God and Nature. This, then, my Lord,	55
is your just commendation, that you have wrought out yourself
a way to glory by those very means that were designed for
your destruction. You have not only restored but advanced
the revenues of your master without grievance to the subject;
and as if that were little yet, the debts of the Exchequer,	60
which lay heaviest both on the Crown and on private persons,
have by your conduct been established in a certainty of
satisfaction: an action so much the more great and honourable
because the case was without the ordinary relief of laws,
above the hopes of the afflicted, and beyond the narrowness	65
of the Treasury to redress, had it been managed by a less able
hand. ’Tis certainly the happiest and most unenvied part of
all your fortune to do good to many while you do injury to
none; to receive at once the prayers of the subject and the
praises of the prince; and by the care of your conduct, to give	70
him means of exerting the chiefest (if any be the chiefest) of
his royal virtues, his distributive justice to the deserving, and
his bounty and compassion to the wanting. The disposition
of princes towards their people cannot better be discovered
than in the choice of their ministers, who, like the animal	75
spirits betwixt the soul and body, participate somewhat of
both natures, and make the communication which is betwixt
them. A king who is just and moderate in his nature, who
rules according to the laws, whom God made happy by
forming the temper of his soul to the constitution of his	80
government, and who makes us happy by assuming over us
no other sovereignty than that wherein our welfare and
liberty consists: a prince, I say, of so excellent a character,
and so suitable to the wishes of all good men, could not better
have conveyed himself into his people’s apprehensions than	85
in your Lordship’s person, who so lively express the same
virtues that you seem not so much a copy as an emanation of
him. Moderation is doubtless an establishment of greatness,
but there is a steadiness of temper which is likewise requisite
in a minister of state: so equal a mixture of both virtues that	90
he may stand like an isthmus betwixt the two encroaching
seas of arbitrary power and lawless anarchy. The undertaking
would be difficult to any but an extraordinary genius, to
stand at the line and to divide the limits; to pay what is
due to the great representative of the nation, and neither to	95
enhance nor to yield up the undoubted prerogatives of the
Crown. These, my Lord, are the proper virtues of a noble Englishman,
as indeed they are properly English virtues, no
people in the world being capable of using them but we
who have the happiness to be born under so equal and so	100
well-poised a government: a government which has all the advantages
of liberty beyond a commonwealth, and all the marks
of kingly sovereignty without the danger of a tyranny. Both
my nature, as I am an Englishman, and my reason, as I am
a man, have bred in me a loathing to that specious name of	105
a republic: that mock appearance of a liberty, where all who
have not part in the government are slaves, and slaves they are
of a viler note than such as are subjects to an absolute dominion:
for no Christian monarchy is so absolute but ’tis circumscribed
with laws; but when the executive power is in the lawmakers,	110
there is no farther check upon them, and the people must
suffer without a remedy because they are oppressed by their
representatives. If I must serve, the number of my masters,
who were born my equals, would but add to the ignominy
of my bondage. The nature of our government, above	115
situation of our all others, is exactly suited both to the
country and the temper of the natives, an island being more
proper for commerce and for defence than for extending its
dominions on the continent: for what the valour of its
inhabitants might gain, by reason of its remoteness and the	120
casualties of the seas it could not so easily preserve; and
therefore neither the arbitrary power of one in a monarchy,
nor of many in a commonwealth, could make us greater
than we are. ’Tis true that vaster and more frequent taxes
might be gathered when the consent of the people was	125
not asked or needed, but this were only by conquering
abroad to be poor at home; and the examples of our neighbours
teach us that they are not always the happiest subjects
whose kings extend their dominions farthest. Since, therefore,
we cannot win by an offensive war, at least a land war,	130
the model of our government seems naturally contrived for
the defensive part, and the consent of a people is easily
obtained to contribute to that power which must protect it.
Felices nimium, bona si sua norint. Angligenae. And yet there
are not wanting malcontents amongst us, who, surfeiting	135
themselves on too much happiness, would persuade the
people that they might be happier by a change. ’Twas indeed
the policy of their old forefather, when himself was fallen
from the station of glory, to seduce mankind into the same
rebellion with him by telling him he might yet be freer than	140
he was: that is, more free than his nature would allow, or (if
I may so say) than God could make him. We have already
all the liberty which freeborn subjects can enjoy, and all beyond
it is but licence. But if it be liberty of conscience which
they pretend, the moderation of our church is such that its	145
practice extends not to the severity of persecution, and its
discipline is withal so easy that it allows more freedom to
dissenters than any of the sects would allow to it. In the meantime,
what right can be pretended by these men to attempt
innovations in church or state? Who made them the trustees	150
or (to speak a little nearer their own language) the keepers
of the liberty of England? If their call be extraordinary, let
them convince us by working miracles; for ordinary vocation
they can have none to disturb the government under which they
were born, and which protects them. He who has often	155
changed his party, and always has made his interest the rule
of it, gives little evidence of his sincerity for the public good:
’tis manifest he changes but for himself, and takes the people
for tools to work his fortune. Yet the experience of all ages
might let him know that they who trouble the waters first	160
have seldom the benefit of the fishing; as they who began the
late rebellion enjoyed not the fruit of their undertaking, but
were crushed themselves by the usurpation of their own
instrument. Neither is it enough for them to answer that they
only intend a reformation of the government, but not the	165
subversion of it: on such pretences all insurrections have
been founded; ’tis striking at the root of power, which is
obedience. Every remonstrance of private men has the seed
of treason in it, and discourses which are couched in ambiguous
terms are therefore the more dangerous because they do	170
all the mischief of open sedition, yet are safe from the punishment
of the laws. These, my Lord, are considerations which I should not
pass so lightly over had I room to manage them as they deserve;
for no man can be so inconsiderable in a nation as not to have a
share in the welfare of it, and, if he be a true Englishman, he must	175
at the same time be fired with indignation, and revenge himself
as he can on the disturbers of his country. And to whom could I
more fitly apply myself than to your Lordship, who have not only
an inborn but an hereditary loyalty? The memorable constancy
and sufferings of your father, almost to the ruin of his	180
estate for the royal cause, were an earnest of that which such
a parent and such an institution would produce in the person
of a son. But so unhappy an occasion of manifesting your
own zeal in suffering for his present Majesty, the Providence
of God and the prudence of your administration will, I hope,	185
prevent; that as your father’s fortune waited on the un-
happiness of his sovereign, so your own may participate of
the better fate which attends his son. The relation which you
have by alliance to the noble family of your lady serves to
confirm to you both this happy augury. For what can deserve	190
a greater place in the English chronicle than the loyalty and
courage, the actions and death, of the general of an army
fighting for his prince and country? The honour and gallantry
of the Earl of Lindsey is so illustrious a subject that ’tis fit
to adorn an heroic poem, for he was the proto-martyr of the	195
cause, and the type of his unfortunate royal master.
Yet, after all, my Lord, if I may speak my thoughts, you
are happy rather to us than to yourself: for the multiplicity,
the cares, and the vexations of your employment have betrayed
you from yourself, and given you up into the possession	200
of the public. You are robbed of your privacy and friends, and
scarce any hour of your life you can call your own. Those
who envy your fortune, if they wanted not good nature,
might more justly pity it; and when they see you watched
by a crowd of suitors, whose importunity ’tis impossible to	205
avoid, would conclude with reason that you have lost
much more in true content than you have gained by
dignity, and that a private gentleman is better attended by a
single servant than your Lordship with so clamorous a train.
Pardon me, my Lord, if I speak like a philosopher on this	210
subject: the fortune which makes a man uneasy cannot make
him happy, and a wise man must think himself uneasy when
few of his actions are in his choice.
This last consideration has brought me to another, and a
very seasonable one for your relief, which is, that while I pity	215
your want of leisure, I have impertinently detained you so
long a time. I have put off my own business, which was my
dedication, till ’tis so late that I am now ashamed to begin it;
and therefore I will say nothing of the poem which I present
to you, because I know not if you are like to have an hour which,	220
with a good conscience, you may throw away in perusing it. And
for the author, I have only to beg the continuance of your protection
to him, who is,
My Lord,
Your Lordship’s most obliged
most humble, and most
obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.