This nobleness of your's I think myself the rather obliged to own, because otherwise it must have been lost to all remembrance; for you are endued with that excellent quality of a frank nature, to forget the good which you have done. But, my Lord, I ought to have considered, that you are as great a judge as you are a patron; and that in praising you ill, I shall incur a higher note of ingratitude than that I thought to have avoided. I stand in need of all your accustomed goodness for the Dedication of this play; which, though perhaps it be the best of my comedies, is yet so faulty, that I should have feared you for my critick, if I had not with some policy given you the trouble of being my protector. Wit seems to have lodged itself more nobly in this age, than in any of the former; and people of my mean condition are only writers, because some of the nobility, and your Lordship in the first place, are above the narrow praises which poesy could give you. But let those who love to see themselves exceeded, encourage your Lordship in so dangerous a quality for my own part, I must confess that I have so much of self-interest, as to be content with reading some papers of your verses, without desiring you should proceed to a scene or play; with the common prudence of those who are worsted in a duel, and declare they are, satisfied when they are first wounded. Your Lordship has but another step to make, and from the patron of wit you may ; become its tyrant, and oppress our little reputations with more case than you now protect them. But these, my Lord, are designs which I am sure you harbour not, any more than the French King is contriving the conquest of the Swissers. It is a barren triumph, which is not worth your pains, and would only rank him amongst your slaves, who is already, DEDICATION THE ASSIGNATION, OR, LOVE IN A NUNNERY. TO MY MOST HONOURED FRIEND, SIR, THE design of dedicating plays is as common and unjust, as that of desiring seconds in a duel. It is engaging our friends (it may be) in a senseless quarrel, where they have much to venture, without any concernment of their own. I have declared thus much beforehand, to prevent you from suspicion that I intend to interest either your judgment or your kindness in defending the errours 4 The ASSIGNATION was acted at the Theatre Royal, and first printed in 1673. Sir Charles Sedley, whose poetry and plays were formerly much admired, but are now little read, was born about the year 1639, and bred at Wadham College, Oxford, where probably his intimacy with Lord Rochester commenced. In 1678, and several subsequent parliaments, he was Member for New-Romney in Kent, which he represented in the year 1700, when he died. Jacob, and other biographers, have erroneously asserted that he lived to ninety years of age. of this comedy. It succeeded ill in the representation, against the opinion of many the best judges of our age, to whom you know I read it ere it was presented publickly. Whether the fault was in the play itself, or in the lameness of the action, or in the number of its enemies, who came rcsolved to damn it for the title, I will not now dispute; that would be too like the little satisfaction which an unlucky gamester finds in the relation of every cast by which he came to lose his money. I have had formerly so much success, that the miscarriage of this play was only my giving Fortune her revenge; I owed it her; and she was indulgent, that she exacted not the payment long before. I will therefore deal more reasonably with you, than any poet has ever done with any patron; I do not so much as oblige you, for my sake, to pass two ill hours in reading of my play. Think, if you please, that this Dedication is only an occasion I have taken to do myself the greatest honour imaginable with posterity; that is, to be recorded in the number of those men whom you have favoured with your friendship and esteem; for I am well assured, that besides the present satisfaction I have, it will gain me the greatest part of my reputation with afterages, when they shall find me valuing myself on your kindness to me. I may have reason to suspect my own credit with them, but I have none to doubt of your's; and they who perhaps would forget me in my poems, would remember me in this epistle. This was the course which has formerly been |