them of that only thing I could defend in them.  They said, I did humi serpere, that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words, to set it off.  I might well answer with that of Horace, Nunc non erat his locus; I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded.  I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence.  But I will not further bribe your candour, or the reader’s.  I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them.

And now, sir, it is time I should relieve you from the tedious length of this account.  You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer.  In conclusion, I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find fewer in the printing by your emendations.  I know you are not of the number of those, of whom the younger Pliny speaks; Nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant:  I am rather too secure of you on that side.  Your candour in pardoning my errors may make you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider that they come into the world with your approbation, and through your hands.  I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and therefore I hope it will stir you up to make my poem fairer by many of your blots; if not, you know the story of the gamester who married the rich man’s daughter, and when her father denied the portion, christened all the children by his surname, that if, in conclusion, they must beg, they should do so by one name, as well as by the other.  But since the reproach of my faults will light on you, it is but reason I should do you that justice to the readers, to let them know, that, if there be anything tolerable in this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the care of it to your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all things, who is, sir, the most obedient, and most faithful of your servants,

JOHN DRYDEN.

From Charlton in Wiltshire, Nov. 10, 1666.

* * * * *

  1 In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
       Crouching at home and cruel when abroad: 
     Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
       Our King they courted, and our merchants awed.

  2 Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
       Stopp’d in their channels, found its freedom lost: 
     Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
       And seem’d but shipwreck’d on so base a coast.