To Her Royal Highness the DUCHESS.[16]
Madam,
After having a great while wished to write something that might be worthy to lay at your Highness's feet, and finding it impossible: since the world has been so kind to me to judge of this poem to my advantage, as the most pardonable fault which I have made in its kind, I had sinned against myself, if I had not chosen this opportunity to implore (what my ambition is most fond of) your favour and protection.
For, though Fortune would not so far bless my endeavours as to encourage them with your Royal Highness's presence, when this came into the world, yet I cannot but declare it was my design and hopes it might have been your divertisement in that happy season when you returned again to cheer all those eyes that had before wept for your departure, and enliven all hearts that had drooped for your absence. When Wit ought to have paid its choicest tributes in, and Joy have known no limits, then I hoped my little mite would not have been rejected; though my ill fortune was too hard for me, and I lost a greater honour, by your Royal Highness's absence, than all the applauses of the world besides can make me reparation for.
Nevertheless, I thought myself not quite unhappy, so long as I had hopes this way yet to recompense my disappointment past; when I considered also that poetry might claim right to a little share in your favour: for Tasso and Ariosto, some of the best, have made their names eternal by transmitting to after-ages the glory of your ancestors; and under the spreading of that shade, where two of the best have planted their laurels, how honoured should I be, who am the worst, if but a branch might grow for me!
I dare not think of offering anything in this address, that might look like a panegyric, for fear lest, when I have done my best, the world should condemn me for saying too little, and you yourself check me for meddling with a task unfit for my talent.