of a very inferior force, was
   defeated with loss.  In the rout lord Sheffield, ancestor of the
   earl of Mulgrave, and the person alluded to in the text, fell with
   his horse into a ditch, and was slain by a butcher with a club.  The
   rebels were afterwards defeated by the earl of Warwick.—­DUGDALE’S
   Baron, vol. ii. p. 386.  HOLLINSHED, p. 1035.]

5.  The entire passage of Lucretius is somewhat different from this
   quotation: 

     Quae bene, et eximie quamvis disposta ferantur,
     Longe sunt tamen a vera ratione repulsa. 
     Omnia enim per se Divum natura necesse est
     Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur,
     Semota a nostris rebus, sejunctaque longe. 
     Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,
     Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri,
     Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira.
                                   LIB.  II.

   Dryden ingeniously applies, to the calm of philosophical
   retirement, the Epicurean tranquillity of the Deities of Lucretius.

6.  The subject of this intended poem, was probably the exploits of the
   Black Prince.  See Life.

7.  An incident in “Artemenes, ou Le Grand Cyrus,” a huge romance,
   written by Madame Scuderi.

PROLOGUE.

  Our author, by experience, finds it true,
  ’Tis much more hard to please himself than you;
  And out of no feigned modesty, this day
  Damns his laborious trifle of a play: 
  Not that its worse than what before he writ,
  But he has now another taste of wit;
  And, to confess a truth, though out of time,
  Grows weary of his long-loved mistress, Rhyme. 
  Passion’s too fierce to be in fetters bound,
  And nature flies him like enchanted ground: 
  What verse can do, he has performed in this,
  Which he presumes the most correct of his;
  But spite of all his pride, a secret shame
  Invades his breast at Shakespeare’s sacred name: 
  Awed when he hears his godlike Romans rage,
  He, in a just despair, would quit the stage;
  And to an age less polished, more unskilled,
  Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield. 
  As with the greater dead he dares not strive,
  He would not match his verse with those who live: 
  Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast,
  The first of this, and hindmost of the last. 
  A losing gamester, let him sneak away;
  He bears no ready money from the play. 
  The fate, which governs poets, thought it fit
  He should not raise his fortunes by his wit. 
  The clergy thrive, and the litigious bar;
  Dull heroes fatten with the spoils of war: 
  All southern vices, heaven be praised, are here: 
  But wit’s a luxury you think too dear. 
  When you to cultivate the plant are loth,
  ’Tis a shrewd sign ’twas never of your growth;
  And wit in northern climates will not