If some of your more scrupulous Friends shall object, that I have mentioned _Theodora_’s Beauty more often and advantagously, and represented her Lovers Passion more Pathetically, than the subject of the story exacted, and the truth requir’d in History would warrant; I shall not altogether deny the Charge: Being rather content to have it thought, that a youthful and heated fancy transported my Pen, somewhat beyond the narrow bounds of History, than that so Pious a person as _Didymus_ did not keep both his Flame, and the Expressions of it, within the limits of Reason and Religion. But though I pretend not to justifie, all that has been said in the strain of an Encomiast, or a Lover, yet I hop’d that I may much Extenuate, if not Excuse it, by representing such things as these. That I have been careful, that _Theodora_ should not be made to do, or say, any thing, that, the great Obligations she had to her Rescuer consider’d, do intrench either upon her Piety, or her Vertue, or so much as upon her Reserv’dness. That as for _Didymus_; I might say, that probably he thought, those Celebrations that would have been Flattery to another Lady, were but Justice to a Person so Extraordinary, and so accomplish’d as his Mistress; and that he thought it allowable, not to suppress the chast effects of a Passion, that has not only been incident to Heroes, but perhaps help’d to make them such. But I will rather say, that those only are like to find much fault with his Expressions, _who_ consider not how free they are from any degree of Prophaneness or Immodesty: And _who_ are not accustomed to the reading of Stories, where Lovers are introduc’d, and made to Praise and Complement in a far more Bold and Romantick way, than I allowed my self in the following Paper. In which, all the Deference, wherewith _Irene_ as well as _Didymus_ treat _Theodora_, may be accounted for by this; That I remember’d to have, in some Author or other, found Mention made of a Person about _Dioclesian_’s time, Whom I took for our Martyr, that was intimated to be of high Quality, if not a _Princess_, which Title I had without scruple given Her, If I had been half as sure that she Was a _Princess_, as that she Deserv’d to be One. That perhaps I was not unwilling, both to shew the Persons I wrote for, that One might have glittering _Idea_’s of Beauty, without being dazl’d by them; and also to convince them, that high Complements and passionate expressions, are no certain Marks of His being really _Smitten_ (to speak in a Lovers Phrase) that can Imploy them; since I retain’d my wonted freedom of mind, while I was Writing; and presented them by the mouth of _Didymus_, but what Fancy, not Passion indited.