s errant and the ladies of
court do therein exchange courtly speeches."

TO

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE

DUKE[1].

SIR,

Heroic poesy has always been sacred to princes, and to heroes. Thus
Virgil inscribed his AEneids to Augustus Caesar; and of latter ages,
Tasso and Ariosto dedicated their poems to the house of Este. It is
indeed but justice, that the most excellent and most profitable kind
of writing should be addressed by poets to such persons, whose
characters have, for the most part, been the guides and patterns of
their imitation; and poets, while they imitate, instruct. The feigned
hero inflames the true; and the dead virtue animates the living.
Since, therefore, the world is governed by precept and example, and
both these can only have influence from those persons who are above
us; that kind of poesy, which excites to virtue the greatest men, is
of the greatest use to human kind.

It is from this consideration, that I have presumed to dedicate to
your royal highness these faint representations of your own worth and
valour in heroick poetry: Or, to speak more properly, not to dedicate,
but to restore to you those ideas, which in the more perfect part of
my characters I have taken from you. Heroes may lawfully be delighted
with their own praises, both as they are farther incitements to their
virtue, and as they are the highest returns which mankind can make
them for it.

And certainly, if ever nation were obliged, either by the conduct, the
personal[2] valour, or the good fortune of a leader, the English are
acknowledging, in all of them, to your royal highness. Your whole life
has been a continued series of heroick actions; which you began so
early, that you were no sooner named in the world, but it was with
praise and admiration. Even the first blossoms of your youth paid us
all that could be expected from a ripening manhood. While you
practised but the rudiments of war, you out-went all other captains;
and have since found none to surpass, but yourself alone. The opening
of your glory was like that of light: You shone to us from afar; and
disclosed your first beams on distant nations: Yet so, that the lustre
of them was spread abroad, and reflected brightly on your native
country. You were then an honour to it, when it was a reproach to
itself. When the fortunate usurper