He may be allowed sometimes to err, who undertakes to move so many Characters and Humours (as are requisite in a Play) in those narrow channels, which are proper to each of them; to conduct his Imaginary Persons through so many various intrigues and chances, as the labouring Audience shall think them lost under every billow:  and then, at length, to work them so naturally out of their distresses, that when the whole Plot is laid open, the Spectators may rest satisfied that every Cause was powerful enough to produce the Effect it had; and that the whole Chain of them was, with such due order, linked together, that the first Accident [Incident], would, naturally, beget the second, till they All rendered the Conclusion necessary.

These difficulties, my Lord! may reasonably excuse the errors of my Undertaking:  but for this confidence of my Dedication, I have an argument, which is too advantageous for me not to publish it to the World.  ’Tis the kindness your Lordship has continually shown to all my writings.  You have been pleased, my Lord! they should sometimes cross the Irish seas, to kiss your hands; which passage, contrary to the experience of others, I have found the least dangerous in the world.  Your favour has shone upon me, at a remote distance, without the least knowledge of my person:  and, like the influence of the heavenly bodies, you have done good, without knowing to whom you did it, ’Tis this virtue in your Lordship, which emboldens me to this attempt.  For did I not consider you as my Patron, I have little reason to desire you for my Judge:  and should appear, with as much awe before you, in the Reading; as I had, when the full theatre sate upon the Action.

For who so severely judge of faults, as he who has given testimony he commits none?  Your excellent Poems having afforded that knowledge of it to the World, that your enemies are ready to upbraid you with it as a crime, for a Man of Business to write so well.  Neither durst I have justified your Lordship in it, if examples of it had not been in the world before you:  If XENOPHON had not written a Romance; and a certain Roman, called AUGUSTUS CAESAR, a Tragedy and Epigrams.  But their writing was the entertainment of their pleasure; yours is only a diversion of your pain.  The Muses have seldom employed your thoughts, but when some violent fit of the gout has snatched you from Affairs of State:  and, like the priestess of APOLLO, you never come to deliver his oracles, but unwillingly, and in torment.  So that we are obliged to your Lordship’s misery, for our delight.  You treat us with the cruel pleasure of a Turkish triumph, where those who cut and wound their bodies, sing songs of victory as they pass; and divert others with their own sufferings.  Other men endure their diseases, your Lordship only can enjoy them!

Plotting and Writing in this kind, are, certainly, more troublesome employments than many which signify more, and are of greater moment in the world.  The Fancy, Memory, and Judgement are then extended, like so many limbs, upon the rack; all of them reaching, with their utmost stress, at Nature:  a thing so almost infinite and boundless, as can never fully be comprehended but where the Images of all things are always present.