true Romans, and their style is such; and I dare affirm, that there
is not in any play of this age so much of the spirit of the classic
authors, as in your Antony and Cleopatra." I cannot help suspecting
that much of this hyperbolical praise of Sedley was obliquely
designed to mortify Dryden.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THOMAS, EARL OF DANBY,

VISCOUNT LATIMER, AND BARON OSBORNE OF
KIVETON IN YORKSHIRE;

LORD HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND,
ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY
COUNCIL, AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE
ORDER OF THE GARTER[1].

MY LORD,

The gratitude of poets is so troublesome a virtue to great men, that
you are often in danger of your own benefits: For you are threatened
with some epistle, and not suffered to do good in quiet, or to
compound for their silence whom you have obliged. Yet, I confess, I
neither am or ought to be surprised at this indulgence; for your
lordship has the same right to favour poetry, which the great and
noble have ever had:

_Carmen amat, quisquis carmine digna gerit._

There is somewhat of a tie in nature betwixt those who are born for
worthy actions, and those who can transmit them to posterity; and
though ours be much the inferior part, it comes at least within the
verge of alliance; nor are we unprofitable members of the
commonwealth, when we animate others to those virtues, which we copy
and describe from you.

It is indeed their interest, who endeavour the subversion of
governments, to discourage poets and historians; for the best which
can happen to them, is, to be forgotten: But such who, under kings,
are the fathers of their country, and by a just and prudent ordering
of affairs preserve it, have the same reason to cherish the
chroniclers of their actions, as they have to lay up in safety the
deeds and evidences of their estates; for such records are their
undoubted titles to the love and reverence of after-ages. Your
lordship's administration has already taken up a considerable part of
the English annals; and many of its most happy years are owing to it.
His majesty, the most knowing judge of men, and the best master, has
acknowledged the ease and benefit he receives in the incomes of his
treasury, which you found not only disordered, but ex