This is an act of generosity, which has something in it so very uncommon, that the most unconcerned and indifferent persons must be moved with it.  How much more must all such be affected by it, who had any due regard for the personal merits of the deceased, or are capable of any taste and distinction for the remains and elegant labours of one of the greatest men, that our nation has produced!

That, which distinguisheth actions of pure and elevated generosity, from those of a mixed and inferior nature, is nothing else but the absolutely disinterested views of the agent.

My Lord, this being granted, in how fair a light does your munificence stand?  A munificence to the memory, to the ashes, of a man whom you never saw—­whom you never can see; and who, consequently, never could, by any personal obligation, induce you to do this deed of bounty; nor can he ever make you any acknowledgment for it, when it shall be done.

It is evident, your Grace can have acted thus from no other motive but your pure regard to merit; from your entire love for learning; and from that accurate taste and discernment, which, by your studies, you have so early attained to in the politer arts.

And these are the qualities, my Lord, by which you are more distinguished, than by all those other uncommon advantages, with which you are attended.  Your great disposition, your great ability to be beneficent to mankind, could by no means answer that end, if you were not possessed of a judgment to direct you in the right application and just distribution of your good offices.

You are now in a station, by which you necessarily preside over the liberal arts, and all the practisers and professors of them.  Poetry is more particularly within your province; and with very good reason may we hope to see it revive and flourish under your influence and protection.

What hopes of reward may not the living deserver entertain, when even the dead are sought out for, and their very urns and ashes made partakers of your liberality?

As I have the honour to be known to you, my Lord, and to have been distinguished by you by many expressions and instances of your goodwill towards me, I take a singular pleasure to congratulate you upon an action so entirely worthy of you.  And as I had the happiness to be very conversant, and as intimately acquainted with Mr Dryden as the great disproportion in our years could allow me to be, I hope it will not be thought too assuming in me, if, in love to his memory, and in gratitude for the many friendly offices, and favourable instructions, which, in my early youth, I received from him, I take upon me to make this public acknowledgment to your Grace, for so public a testimony, as you are pleased to give to the world, of that high esteem, in which you hold the performances of that eminent man.

I can, in some degree, justify myself for so doing, by a citation of a kind of right to it, bequeathed to me by him.  And it is, indeed, upon that pretension, that I presume even to make a dedication of these his works to you.