Footnotes: 
1.  Sir Thomas Clifford, just then created Lord Clifford of Chudleigh,
   and appointed Lord High Treasurer, was one of the six ministers,
   the initials of whose names furnished the word Cabal, by which
   their junto was distinguished.  He was the most virtuous and honest
   of the junto, but a Catholic; and, what was then synonymous, a warm
   advocate for arbitrary power.  He is said to have won his promotion
   by advising the desperate measure of shutting the Exchequer in
   1671, the hint of which he is said to have stolen from Shaftesbury. 
   This piece may have been undertaken by his command; for, even at
   the very time of the triple alliance, he is reported to have said,
   “For all this, we must have another Dutch war.”  Upon the defection
   of Lord Shaftesbury from the court party, and the passing of the
   test act, Lord Clifford resigned his office, retired to the
   country, and died in September 1673, shortly after receiving this
   dedication.

2.  In this case, Dryden’s praise, which did not always occur, survived
   the temporary occasion.  Even in a little satirical effusion, he
   tells us,

     Clifford was fierce and brave.

   Clifford had been comptroller and treasurer of the household, and
   one of the commissioners of the treasury; he had served in the
   Dutch wars.

3.  Alluding to Lord Clifford’s resignation of an office he could not
   hold without a change of religion.

Prologue.

This poem was written as far back as 1662, and was then termed a
Satire against the Dutch.

As needy gallants in the scriveners’ hands,
Court the rich knave that gripes their mortgaged lands,
The first fat buck of all the season’s sent,
And keeper takes no fee in compliment: 
The dotage of some Englishmen is such
To fawn on those who ruin them—­the Dutch. 
They shall have all, rather than make a war
With those who of the same religion are. 
The Straits, the Guinea trade, the herrings too,
Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you. 
Some are resolved not to find out the cheat,
But, cuckold like, love him who does the feat: 
What injuries soe’er upon us fall,
Yet, still, The same religion, answers all: 
Religion wheedled you to civil war,
Drew English blood, and Dutchmen’s now would spare: 
Be gulled no longer, for you’ll find it true,
They have no more religion, faith—­than you;
Interest’s the god they worship in their state;
And you, I take it, have not much of that. 
Well, monarchies may own religion’s name,
But states are atheists in their very frame. 
They share a sin, and such proportions fall,
That, like a stink, ’tis nothing to them all. 
How they love England, you shall see this day;
No map shews Holland truer than our play: