Yet, my Lord! you must suffer me a little to complain of you! that you too soon withdraw from us a contentment, of which we expected the continuance, because you gave it us so early.  ’Tis a revolt without occasion from your Party! where your merits had already raised you to the highest commands:  and where you have not the excuse of other men that you have been ill used and therefore laid down arms.  I know no other quarrel you can have to Verse, than that which_ SPURINA had to his beauty; when he tore and mangled the features of his face, only because they pleased too well the lookers on.  It was an honour which seemed to wait for you, to lead out a New Colony of Writers from the Mother Nation; and, upon the first spreading of your ensigns, there had been many in a readiness to have followed so fortunate a Leader; if not all, yet the better part of writers.

    Pars, indocili melior grege, mollis et expes
      Inominata perprimat cubilia.

I am almost of opinion that we should force you to accept of the command; as sometimes the Praetorian Bands have compelled their Captains to receive the Empire.  The Court, which is the best and surest judge of writing, has generally allowed of Verse; and in the Town, it has found favourers of Wit and Quality.

As for your own particular, my Lord! you have yet youth and time enough to give part of it to the Divertisement of the of the Public, before you enter into the serious and more unpleasant Business of the World.

That which the French Poet said of the Temple of Love, may be as well applied to the Temple of Muses.  The words, as near[ly] as I can remember them, were these—­_

    La jeunesse a mauvaise grace
    N’ayant pas adore dans le Temple d’Amour;
    Il faut qu’il entre:  et pour le sage;
    Si ce n’est son vrai sejour,
    Ce’st un gite sur son passage.

I leave the words to work their effect upon your Lordship, in their own language; because no other can so well express the nobleness of the thought:  and wish you may be soon called to bear a part in the affaires of the Nation, where I know the World expects you, and wonders why you have been so long forgotten; there being no person amongst our young nobility, on whom the eyes of all men are so much bent.  But, in the meantime, your Lordship may imitate the Course of Nature, which gives us the flower before the fruit; that I may speak to you in the language of the Muses, which I have taken from an excellent Poem to the King [i.e., CHARLES II.]

As Nature, when she fruit designs, thinks fit By beauteous blossoms to proceed to it, And while she does accomplish all the Spring, Birds, to her secret operations sing.

I confess I have no greater reason in addressing this Essay to your Lordship, than that it might awaken in you the desire of writing something, in whatever kind it be, which might be an honour to our Age and country.  And, methinks, it might have the same effect upon you, which, HOMER tells us, the fight of the Greeks and Trojans before the fleet had on the spirit of ACHILLES; who, though he had resolved not to engage, yet found a martial warmth to steal upon him at the sight of blows, the sound of trumpets, and the cries of fighting men.