For the description of virtues and perfections so rare as yours are ought to be done by as deliberate, as skilful a hand; the features must be drawn very fine, to be like; hasty daubing would but spoil the picture, and make it so unnatural as must want false lights to set it off: and your virtue can receive no more lustre from praises than your beauty can be improved by art; which, as it charms the bravest Prince that ever amazed the world with his virtue, so let but all other hearts inquire into themselves, and then judge how it ought to be praised.
Your love, too, as none but that great hero who has it could deserve it, and therefore, by a particular lot from Heaven, was destined to so extraordinary a blessing, so matchless for itself, and so wondrous for its constancy, shall be remembered to your immortal honour, when all other transactions of the age you live in shall be forgotten.
But I forget that I am to ask pardon for the fault I have been all this while committing. Wherefore, I beg your Highness to forgive me this presumption, and that you will be pleased to think well of one who cannot help resolving, with all the actions of life, to endeavour to deserve it: nay, more, I would beg, and hope it may be granted, that I may, through yours, never want an advocate in his favour, whose heart and mind you have so entire a share in: it is my only portion and my fortune; I cannot but be happy so long as I have but hopes I may enjoy it, and I must be miserable should it ever be my ill fate to lose it.
This, with eternal wishes for your Royal Highness's content, happiness, and prosperity, in all humility is presented by
Your most obedient, and devoted Servant,
THO. OTWAY.
FOOTNOTES:
High profits tempt the merchant to the main;
The pouch of gold repays the soldier's pain;
The parasite will dine, and fawns to win
The couch and cup; the pander sells his sin.
Genius alone a shivering trade pursues,
And courts without a fee the friendless muse.—A. W. V.
[16] Mary Beatrix Eleonora of Este, daughter of the Duke of Modena. She was the Duke of York's second wife. The allusion to Tasso may have proved not altogether delightful to a Princess of this house.
