This more than Human Goodness, with the incouragement Your Royal
Highness was pleas’d to give the Rover at his first appearance, and the
concern You were pleas’d to have for his second, makes me presume to
lay him at Your feet; he is a wanderer too, distrest; belov’d, the
unfortunate, 114 and ever conscent to Loyalty; were he Legions he
should follow and suffer still with so Excellent a Prince and Master.
Your Infant worth he knew, and all Your growing Glories; has seen you
like young Cesar in the Field, when yet a Youth, exchanging Death for
Laurels, and wondred at a Bravery so early, which still made double
Conquest, not only by Your Sword, but by Your Vertues,
Some of Oliver’s Commanders at Dunkirk which taught even Your Enemies
so intire an Obedience, that asham’d of their Rebel Gallantry, they
have resign’d their guilty Commissions, and Vow’d never to Draw Sword
more but in the Royal Cause; which Vow Religiously they kept: a noble
Example for the busie and hot Mutineers of this Age misled by Youth,
false Ambition and falser Council.
How careless since Your Glorious Restauration You have been, of Your
Life for the service of Your mistaken Country, the whole World knows,
and all brave men admire.
Pardon me then, Great Sir, if I presume to present my faithful Soldier,
(which no Storms of Fate can ever draw from his Obedience) to so great
a General: allow him, Royal Sir, a shelter and protection, who was
driven from his Native Country with You, forc’d as You were, to fight
for his Bread in a Strange Land, and suffer’d with You all the Ills of
Poverty, War and Banishment; and still pursues Your Fortunes; and
though he cannot serve Your Highness, he may possibly have the Honour
of diverting You a few moments: which tho Your Highness cannot want in
a place where all Hearts and Knees are justly bow’d in Adoration, where
all conspire, as all the Earth (who have the blessing of Your presence)
ought to entertain, serve and please You; yet this humble Tribute of a
most Zealous and Devout Heart, may find amongst Your busier hours of
greater moment, some one wherein it may have the Glory of Your regard,
and be capable in some small degree of unbending Your great mind from
Royal Cares, the weightiest Cares of all; which if it be so fortunate
as to do, I have my end, and the Glory I design, a sufficient reward
for her who does and will eternally pray for the Life, Health and
Safety of Your Royal Highness, as in Duty all the World is bound to do,
but more especially,
Illustrious Sir,
Your Highnesses most Humble,
most Faithful, and
most Obedient Servant,
A. BEHN.
115
THE ROVER.
PART II.
PROLOGUE,
Spoken by Mr. _Smith_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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