My LORD,

TheGratitude of Poets is so troublesome a Virtue to Great Men, that you are often in danger of your own Benefits: for you are threaten’d with some Epistle, and not suffer’d to do good in quiet, or to compound for their silence whom you have oblig’d. Yet, I confess, I neither am nor ought to be surpriz’d at this Indulgence: for your Lordship has the same right to favour Poetry which the Great and Noble have ever had.

There is somewhat of a tye in Nature betwixt those who are born for Worthy Actions, and those who...

Thoughit be dangerous to raise too great an expectation, especially in works of this Nature, where we are to please an unsatiable Audience, yet ’tis reasonable to prepossess them in favour of an Author, and therefore both the Prologue and Epilogue inform’d you, thatOedipuswas the most celebrated piece of all Antiquity: ThatSophocles,not only the greatest Wit, but one of the greatest Men inAthens, made it for the Stage at the Publick Cost, and that it had the reputation of being his Masterpiece, not only amongst the Seven of his which are still remaining, but...

My Lord,

Since I cannot promise you much of Poetry in my Play, ’tis but reasonable that I shou’d secure you from any part of it in my Dedication. And indeed I cannot better distinguish the exactness of your taste from that of other men, than by the plainness and sincerity of my Address. I must keep my Hyperboles in reserve for men of other understandings: An hungry Appetite after praise, and a strong digestion of it, will bear the grossnesse of that diet: But one of so criticall a judgement as your Lordship, who can set the bounds of...