These favours, my lord, received from yourself, and your noble family, have encouraged me to this dedication; wherein I not only give you back a play, which, had you not redeemed it, had not been mine; but also, at the same time, dedicate to you the unworthy author, with my inviolable faith, and (how mean soever) my utmost service; and I shall be proud to hold my dependance on you in chief, as I do part of my small fortune in Wiltshire. Your goodness has not been wanting to me during the reign of my two masters; and, even from a bare treasury, my success has been contrary to that of Mr Cowley; and Gideon's fleece has then been moistened, when all the ground has been dry about it[35]. Such and so many provocations of this nature have concurred to my invading of your modesty with this address. I am sensible that it is in a manner forced upon you; but your lordship has been the aggressor in this quarrel, by so many favours, which you were not weary of conferring on me, though, at the same time, I own the ambition on my side, to be ever esteemed, Your Lordship's most thankful, And most obedient Servant, JOHN DRYDEN. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 30: Dryden had already distinguished Hyde, Earl of Rochester, by inscribing "The Duke of Guise" to him. As he was son of the famous Lord Clarendon, he was, of course, uncle to Queen Mary, by the mother's side, and his protection continued therefore to be respectable, although his political tenets were strongly Jacobitical.] [Footnote 31: See the end of the 34th and beginning of the 35th canto of the "Orlando Furioso."] [Footnote 32: The 29th Ode of the First Book. See it among our author's translations from Horace.] [Footnote 33: These ladies, Mr Malone supposes to be Lord Rochester's two daughters, Henrietta Lady Dalkeith, and Mary Lady Conway, with his daughter-in-law Lady Hyde, the Berenice who is mentioned presently afterward. The Duchess of Ormond, eldest daughter of the Earl, died in 1685, and therefore could not be of the number.] [Footnote 34: Lady Silvius was the wife of Sir Gabriel Silvius, employed upon various occasions as an English envoy on the Continent.] [Footnote 35: "As a fair morning of the blessed spring, After a tedious stormy night, Such was the glorious entry of our King; Enriching moisture dropp'd on every thing; Plenty he sow'd below, and cast about him light. But then, alas! to thee alone One of old Gideon's miracles was shewn, For every tree and every herb around With pearly dew was crown'd; And upon all the quicken'd ground The fruitful seed of heaven did brooding lie, And nothing but the Muses' fleece was dry."] PREFACE.