This last consideration has brought me to another, and a very seasonable one for your relief; which is, that while I pity your want of leisure, I have impertinently detained you so long a time. I have put off my own business, which was my dedication, till it is so late, that I am now ashamed to begin it; and therefore I will say nothing of the poem, which I present to you, because I know not if you are like to have an hour, which, with a good conscience, you may throw away in perusing it; and for the author, I have only to beg the continuance of your protection to him, who is, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obliged, Most humble, and Most obedient, servant, JOHN DRYDEN. Footnotes: 1. The person, to whom these high titles now belonged, was Sir Thomas Osburne, a Baronet of good family, and decayed estate; part of which had been lost in the royal cause. He was of a bold undaunted character, and stood high for the prerogative. Hence he was thought worthy of being sworn into the Privy Council during the administration of the famous CABAL; and when that was dissolved by the secession of Shaftesbury and the resignation of Clifford, he was judged a proper person to succeed the latter as Lord High Treasurer. He was created Earl of Danby, and was supposed to be deeply engaged in the attempt to new-model our Constitution on a more arbitrary plan; having been even heard to say, when sitting in judgment, that a new proclamation from the Crown was superior to an old act of Parliament. Nevertheless, he was persecuted as well by the faction of the Duke of York, to whom he was odious for having officiously introduced the famous Popish plot to the consideration of parliament, as by the popular party, who hated him as a favourite minister. Accordingly, in 1678, he was impeached by a vote of the House of Commons, and in consequence, notwithstanding the countenance of the King, was deprived of all his offices, and finally committed to the tower, where he remained for four years. Sir John Reresby has these reflections on Lord Danby's greatness and sudden fall: "It was but a few months before, that few things were transacted at court, but with the privity or consent of this great man; the King's brother, and favourite mistress, were glad to be fair with him, and the general address of all men of business was to him, who was not only treasurer, but prime minister also, who not only kept the purse, but was the first, and greatest confident in all affairs of state. But now he is neglected of all, forced to hide his head as a criminal, and in danger of losing all he has got, and his life therewith: His family, raised from privacy to the degree of Marquis, (a patent was then actually passing to invest him with that dignity) is now on the brink of falling below the humble stand of a yeoman; nor would almost the