[TO HIS]
ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE
[DUKE], &c.
Great Sir,
I dread to appear in this Humble Dedication to Your Royal Highness, as one of those Insolent and Saucy Offenders who take occasion by Your absence to commit ill-mannered indecencies, unpardonable to a Prince of your Illustrious Birth and God-like Goodness, but that in spight of Seditious Scandal You can forgive; and all the World knows You can suffer with a Divine Patience: the proofs You have early and late given of this, have been such, as if Heaven design’d ’em only to give the World an undeniable Testimony of Your Noble Vertues, Your Loyalty and True Obedience (if I may presume to say so,) both to Your Sacred Brother, and the never satisfied People, when either one Commanded, or t’other repin’d, With how chearful and intire a submission You Obey’d? And tho the Royal Son of a Glorious Father who was render’d unfortunate by the unexemplary ingratitude of his worst of Subjects; and sacrific’d to the insatiate and cruel Villany of a seeming sanctifi’d Faction, who cou’d never hope to expiate for the unparallell’d sin, but by an intire submission to the Gracious Off-spring of this Royal Martyr: yet You, Great Sir, denying Yourself the Rights and Priviledges the meanest Subject Claims, with a Fortitude worthy Your Adorable Vertues, put Yourself upon a voluntary Exile to appease the causeless murmurs of this again gathering Faction, who make their needless and self-created fears, an occasion to Play the old Game o’re again; whil’st the Politick self-interested and malitious few betray the unconsidering Rest, with the delicious sounds of Liberty and Publick Good; that lucky Cant which so few years since so miserably reduc’d all the Noble, Brave and Honest, to the Obedience of the ill-gotten Power, and worse-acted Greatness of the Rabble; so that whil’st they most unjustly cry’d down the oppression of one of the best of Monarchs, and all Kingly Government: all England found itself deplorably inslav’d by the Arbitrary Tyranny of many Pageant Kings. Oh that we shou’d so far forget with what greatness of mind You then shar’d the common Fate, as now and again to force Your Royal Person to new Perils, and new Exiles; but such ingratitude we are punisht with, and You still suffer for, and still forgive it.
This more than Human Goodness, with the incouragement Your Royal Highness was pleas’d to give the Rover at his first appearance, and the concern You were pleas’d to have for his second, makes me presume to lay him at Your feet; he is a wanderer too, distrest; belov’d, the unfortunate, and ever conscent to Loyalty; were he Legions he should follow and suffer still with so Excellent a Prince and Master. Your Infant worth he knew, and all Your growing Glories; has seen you like [young Cesar in the Field], when yet a Youth, exchanging Death for Laurels, and wondred at a Bravery so early, which still made double Conquest, not only by Your Sword, but by Your Vertues, [Some of Oliver’s Commanders at Dunkirk] which taught even Your Enemies so intire an Obedience, that asham’d of their Rebel Gallantry, they have resign’d their guilty Commissions, and Vow’d never to Draw Sword more but in the Royal Cause; which Vow Religiously they kept: a noble Example for the busie and hot Mutineers of this Age misled by Youth, false Ambition and falser Council.
How careless since Your Glorious Restauration You have been, of Your Life for the service of Your mistaken Country, the whole World knows, and all brave men admire.
Pardon me then, Great Sir, if I presume to present my faithful Soldier, (which no Storms of Fate can ever draw from his Obedience) to so great a General: allow him, Royal Sir, a shelter and protection, who was driven from his Native Country with You, forc’d as You were, to fight for his Bread in a Strange Land, and suffer’d with You all the Ills of Poverty, War and Banishment; and still pursues Your Fortunes; and though he cannot serve Your Highness, he may possibly have the Honour of diverting You a few moments: which tho Your Highness cannot want in a place where all Hearts and Knees are justly bow’d in Adoration, where all conspire, as all the Earth (who have the blessing of Your presence) ought to entertain, serve and please You; yet this humble Tribute of a most Zealous and Devout Heart, may find amongst Your busier hours of greater moment, some one wherein it may have the Glory of Your regard, and be capable in some small degree of unbending Your great mind from Royal Cares, the weightiest Cares of all; which if it be so fortunate as to do, I have my end, and the Glory I design, a sufficient reward for her who does and will eternally pray for the Life, Health and Safety of Your Royal Highness, as in Duty all the World is bound to do, but more especially,
Illustrious Sir,
Your Highnesses most Humble,
most Faithful, and