The researches of Mr Malone have ascertained that "Marriage A-la-Mode" was first acted in 1673, in an old theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, occupied by the King's company, after that in Drury-Lane had been burned, and during its re-building. The play was printed in the same year. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF ROCHESTER[1]. MY LORD, I humbly dedicate to your Lordship that poem, of which you were pleased to appear an early patron, before it was acted on the stage. I may yet go farther, with your permission, and say, that it received amendment from your noble hands ere it was fit to be presented. You may please likewise to remember, with how much favour to the author, and indulgence to the play, you commended it to the view of his Majesty, then at Windsor, and, by his approbation of it in writing, made way for its kind reception on the theatre. In this dedication, therefore, I may seem to imitate a custom of the ancients, who offered to their gods the firstlings of the flock, (which, I think, they called _Ver sacrum_) because they helped them to increase. I am sure, if there be any thing in this play, wherein I have raised myself beyond the ordinary lowness of my comedies, I ought wholly to acknowledge it to the favour of being admitted into your lordship's conversation. And not only I, who pretend not to this way, but the best comic writers of our age, will join with me to acknowledge, that they have copied the gallantries of courts, the delicacy of expression, and the decencies of behaviour, from your lordship, with more success, than if they had taken their models from the court of France. But this, my lord, will be no wonder to the world, which knows the excellency of your natural parts, and those you have acquired in a noble education. That which, with more reason, I admire, is that being so absolute a courtier, you have not forgot either the ties of friendship, or the practice of generosity. In my little experience of a court, (which, I confess, I desire not to improve) I have found in it much of interest, and more of detraction: Few men there have that assurance of a friend, as not to be made ridiculous by him when they are absent. There are a middling sort of courtiers, who become happy by their want of wit; but they supply that want by an excess of malice to those who have it. And there is no such persecution as that of fools: They can never be considerable enough to be talked of themselves; so that they are safe only in their obscurity, and grow mischievous to witty men, by the great diligence of their envy, and by being always present to represent and aggravate their faults. In the mean time, they are forced, when they endeavour to be pleasant, to live on the offals of their wit whom they decry; and either to quote it, (which they do unwillingly) or to pass it upon others for their own.