This last consideration has brought me to another, and a very seasonable one for your relief; which is, that while I pity your want of leisure, I have impertinently detained you so long a time.  I have put off my own business, which was my dedication, till it is so late, that I am now ashamed to begin it; and therefore I will say nothing of the poem, which I present to you, because I know not if you are like to have an hour, which, with a good conscience, you may throw away in perusing it; and for the author, I have only to beg the continuance of your protection to him, who is,

  My Lord,

    Your Lordship’s most obliged,
      Most humble, and
        Most obedient, servant,
          JOHN DRYDEN.

Footnotes: 
1.  The person, to whom these high titles now belonged, was Sir Thomas
   Osburne, a Baronet of good family, and decayed estate; part of
   which had been lost in the royal cause.  He was of a bold undaunted
   character, and stood high for the prerogative.  Hence he was thought
   worthy of being sworn into the Privy Council during the
   administration of the famous CABAL; and when that was dissolved by
   the secession of Shaftesbury and the resignation of Clifford, he
   was judged a proper person to succeed the latter as Lord High
   Treasurer.  He was created Earl of Danby, and was supposed to be
   deeply engaged in the attempt to new-model our Constitution on a
   more arbitrary plan; having been even heard to say, when sitting in
   judgment, that a new proclamation from the Crown was superior to an
   old act of Parliament.  Nevertheless, he was persecuted as well by
   the faction of the Duke of York, to whom he was odious for having
   officiously introduced the famous Popish plot to the consideration
   of parliament, as by the popular party, who hated him as a
   favourite minister.  Accordingly, in 1678, he was impeached by a
   vote of the House of Commons, and in consequence, notwithstanding
   the countenance of the King, was deprived of all his offices, and
   finally committed to the tower, where he remained for four years. 
   Sir John Reresby has these reflections on Lord Danby’s greatness
   and sudden fall:  “It was but a few months before, that few things
   were transacted at court, but with the privity or consent of this
   great man; the King’s brother, and favourite mistress, were glad to
   be fair with him, and the general address of all men of business
   was to him, who was not only treasurer, but prime minister also,
   who not only kept the purse, but was the first, and greatest
   confident in all affairs of state.  But now he is neglected of
   all, forced to hide his head as a criminal, and in danger of losing
   all he has got, and his life therewith:  His family, raised from
   privacy to the degree of Marquis, (a patent was then actually
   passing to invest him with that dignity) is now on the brink of
   falling below the humble stand of a yeoman; nor would almost the
   meanest subject change conditions with him now, whom so very lately
   the greatest beheld with envy.” Memoirs, p. 85.