TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
CHARLES,
EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX,
LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF THEIR MAJESTIES' HOUSEHOLD, KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, &c.
MY LORD,
As I was lately reviewing my loose papers, amongst the rest I found this Essay; the writing of which, in this rude and indigested manner, wherein your lordship now sees it, served as an amusement to me in the country, when the violence of the last plague had driven me from the town.[99] Seeing, then, our theatres shut up, I was engaged in these kind of thoughts with the same delight, with which men think upon their absent mistresses. I confess I find many things in this discourse, which I do not now approve; my judgment being not a little altered since the writing of it, but whether for the better, or the worse, I know not: neither, indeed, is it much material in an Essay, where all I have said is problematical. For the way of writing plays in verse, which I have seemed to favour, I have, since that time, laid the practice of it aside, till I have more leisure, because I find it troublesome and slow: But I am no way altered from my opinion of it, at least with any reasons which have opposed it.[100] For your lordship may easily observe, that none are very violent against it, but those who either have not attempted it, or who have succeeded ill in their attempt. It is enough for me to have your lordship's example for my excuse in that little which I have done in it; and I am sure my adversaries can bring no such arguments against verse, as those with which the fourth act of "Pompey" will furnish me in its defence.[101] Yet, my lord, you must suffer me a little to complain of you, that you too soon withdraw from us a contentment, of which we expected the continuance, because you gave it us so early. It is a revolt, without occasion, from your party, where your merits had already raised you to the highest commands, and where you have not the excuse of other men, that you have been ill used, and therefore laid down arms. I know no other quarrel you can have to verse, than that which Spurina had to his beauty, when he tore and mangled the features of his face, only because they pleased too well the sight.[102] It was an honour which seemed to wait for you, to lead out a new colony of writers from the mother-nation: and, upon the first spreading of your ensigns, there had been many in a readiness to have followed so fortunate a leader; if not all, yet the better part of poets:
Pars, indocili melior grege; mollis et exspes
Inominata perprimat cubilia.
I am almost of opinion, that we should force you to accept of the command, as sometimes the prætorian bands have compelled their captains to receive the empire. The court, which is the best and surest judge of writing, has generally allowed of verse; and, in the town, it has found favourers of wit and quality. As for your own particular, my lord, you have yet youth and time enough to give part of them to the divertisement of the public, before you enter into the serious and more unpleasant business of the world. That which the French poet said of the temple of Love, may be as well applied to the temple of the Muses. The words, as near as I can remember them, were these: