Courteous Reader, thy free Acceptance of the former edition, encouraged me so far as to use my best diligence to gain what still remained in the hands of the Author's friends. I acknowledge myself to be obliged to Mr. Williamson, whose worthy example Mr. Cleveland's other honourers have since pursued. I shall not trouble thee, Reader, with any further Apologies, but only subscribe Mr. W. W. his last Verses in his following Elegy on Mr. Cleveland.
That Plagiary that can filch but one
Conceit from Him, and keep the Theft unknown,
At Noon from Phoebus, may by the same sleight,
Steal Beams, and make 'em pass for his own light.
〈Prefixed to Clievelandi Vindiciae, 1677[1]〉
To the Right Worshipful and Reverend
Francis Turner, D.D., Master of St. John's College
in Cambridge, and to the Worthy Fellows
of the same College.
Gentlemen,
That we interrupt your more serious studies with the offer of this piece, the injury that hath been and is done to the deceased author's ashes not only pleadeth our excuse, but engageth you (whose once he was, and within whose walls this standard of wit was first set up) in the same quarrel with us.
Whilst Randolph and Cowley lie embalmed in their own native wax, how is the name and memory of Cleveland equally profaned by those that usurp, and those that blaspheme it?—by those that are ambitious to lay their cuckoo's eggs in his nest, and those that think to raise up Phœnixes of wit by firing his spicy bed about him?