daughter still keeping the Indian house her mother had.  The same day the queen went to one Mrs Wise’s, a famous woman for telling fortunes, but could not prevail with her to tell anything; though to others she has been very true, and has foretold that king James shall came in again, and the duke of Norfolk shall lose his head:  the last, I suppose, will naturally be the consequence of the first.  These things, however innocent, have passed the censure of the town:  and, besides a private reprimand given, the king gave one in public; saying to the queen, that he heard she dined at a bawdy-house, and desired the next time she went, he might go.  She said, she had done nothing but what the late queen had done.  He asked her, if she meant to make her, her example.  More was said on this occasion than ever was known before; but it was borne with all the submission of a good wife, who leaves all to the direction of the k——­, and diverts herself with walking six or seven miles a-day, and looking after her buildings, making of fringes, and such like innocent things; and does not meddle in government, though she has better title to do it than the late queen had.”

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN,

LORD HAUGHTON[1].

MY LORD,

When I first designed this play, I found, or thought I found, somewhat so moving in the serious part of it, and so pleasant in the comic, as might deserve a more than ordinary care in both; accordingly, I used the best of my endeavour, in the management of two plots, so very different from each other, that it was not perhaps the talent of every writer to have made them of a piece.  Neither have I attempted other plays of the same nature, in my opinion, with the same judgment, though with like success.  And though many poets may suspect themselves for the fondness and partiality of parents to their youngest children, yet I hope I may stand exempted from this rule, because I know myself too well to be ever satisfied with my own conceptions, which have seldom reached to those ideas that I had within me; and consequently, I may presume to have liberty to judge when I write more or less pardonably, as an ordinary marksman may know certainly when he shoots less wide at what he aims.  Besides, the care and pains I have bestowed on this, beyond my other tragi-comedies, may reasonably make the world conclude, that either I can do nothing tolerably, or that this poem is not much amiss.  Few good pictures have been finished at one sitting; neither can a true just play, which is to bear the test of ages, be produced at a heat, or by the force of fancy, without the maturity of judgment.  For my own part, I have both so just a diffidence of myself, and so great a reverence for my audience, that I dare venture nothing without a strict examination; and am as much ashamed to put a loose indigested play upon the public, as I should be to offer brass money