DEDICATION

OF

DON SEBASTIAN,

KING OF PORTUGAL.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

PHILIP, EARL OF LEICESTER, &c. 2

FAR be it from me, my most noble Lord, to think that any thing which my meanness can produce, should be worthy to be offered to your patronage, or that aught which I can say of you

• This tragedy, which was acted by the King's Servants at the Theatre Royal, with great applause, (as Langbaine, who wrote soon afterwards, tells us he had heard,) was first printed in 1690. Between 1682 and this period, our author had discontinued writing for the stage.

**DON SEBASTIAN (says Dr. Johnson, contrasting, it should seem, this play with ALL FOR LOVE,) is commonly esteemed either the first or second of Dryden's dramatick performances. It is too long to be all acted, and has many characters and many incidents; and though it is not without sallies of frantick dignity, and more noise than meaning, yet as it makes approaches to the possibilities of real life, and has some sentiments which leave a strong impression, it continued long to attract attention. Amidst

should recommend you farther to the esteem of good men in this present age, or to the veneration which will certainly be paid you by posterity. On

the distresses of princes, and the vicissitudes of empire, are inserted several scenes which the writer intended for comick; but which, I suppose, that age did not much commend, and this would not endure. There are, however, passages of excellence universally acknowledged: the dispute and the reconciliation of Dorax and Sebastian has always been admired."

2

Philip Sydney, third Earl of Leicester, was the eldest son of Robert, Earl of Leicester, and Lady Dorothy Percy, eldest daughter of Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland. He was brother of the celebrated Algernon Sydney, and of Waller's Sacharissa; and if elder than that lady, must have been born in (or before) the year 1616, which was probably the time of his birth, for Collins says that he died March 6th, 1696-7," aged more than eighty years.": Having taken an active part in the rebellion, he was nominated one of the Judges to try Charles the First; but never sat in the pretended Court of Justice. After the murder of his Sovereign, however, he did not scruple to act with the Regicides, for he was one of the executive Council of State, appointed by them Feb. 14th, 1648-9. In 1653 he was one of Oliver's Council of twenty-one; and on his going in state to his mock-parliament, Lord Viscount L'Isle, as he was then called, (for his father was yet living,) stood with his sword drawn close to the Earl of Warwick, who carried the sword of state before the Usurper. He afterwards brought indelible disgrace on the name of Sydney, by sitting with Desborough the clown, Pride the drayman, and Hewson the cobler, in Cromwell's House of Lords, in December, 1657.

the other side, I must acknowledge it a great presumption in me to make you this address; and so much the greater, because, by the common suffrage even of contrary parties, you have been always regarded as one of the first persons of the age, and yet no one writer has dared to tell you so; whether we have been all conscious to ourselves that it was a needless labour to give this notice to mankind, as all men are ashamed to tell stale news, or that we were justly diffident of our own performances, as even Cicero is observed to be in awe when he writes to Atticus; where, knowing himself overmatched in good sense and truth of knowledge, he drops the gawdy train of words, and is no longer the vain-glorious orator. From whatever reason it may be, I am the first bold offender of this kind; I have broken down the fence, and ventured into the Holy Grove. How I may be punished for my profane attempt, I know not; but I wish it may not be of ill omen to your Lordship, and that a crowd of bad writers do not rush into the quiet of your recesses after me. Every man in all changes of government which have been, or may possibly arrive, will agree, that I could not have offered my incense where it could be so well deserved; for you, my Lord, are secure in your own merit, and all parties, as they rise uppermost, are sure to court you in their turns. It is a tribute which has ever been paid your virtue; the leading men still bring their bullion to your mint, to receive the stamp of their intrin

sick value, that they may afterwards hope to pass with human kind. They rise and fall in the variety of revolutions, and are sometimes great, and therefore wise, in men's opinions, who must court them for their interest; but the reputation of their parts most commonly follows their success; few of them are wise but as they are in power, because indeed, they have no sphere of their own, but like the moon in the Copernican system of. the world, are whirled about by the motion of a greater planet. This it is to be ever busy, neither to give rest to their fellow-creatures, nor which is more wretchedly ridiculous, to themselves; though truly, the latter is a kind of justice, and giving mankind a due revenge, that they will not permit their own hearts to be at quiet, who disturb the repose of all beside them. Ambitious meteors! how willing they are to set themselves upon the wing, and taking every occasion of drawing upward to the sun! not considering that they have no more time allowed them for their mounting, than the short revolution of a day; and that when the light goes from them, they are of necessity to fall.

How much happier is he, (and who he is I need not say, for there is but one phoenix in an age,) who centering on himself, remains immoveable, and smiles at the madness of the dance about him. He possesses the midst, which is the portion of safety and content; he will not be higher, because he needs it not; but by the prudence of that

choice, he puts it out of fortune's power to throw shim down. It is confessed, that if he had not so -been born, he might have been too high for happiness; but not endeavouring to ascend, he secures the native height of his station from envy, and cannot descend from what he is, because he depends not on another. What a glorious character was this once in Rome,-I should say, in Athens, when in the disturbances of a state as mad as ours, the wise Pomponius transported all the remaining wisdom and virtue of his country into the sanctuary of peace and learning. But I would ask the world, (for you, my Lord, are too nearly concerned to judge this cause,) whether there may not yet be found a character of a noble Englishman, equally shining with that illustrious Roman; whether I 'need to name a second Atticus; or whether the world has not already prevented me, and fixed it there without my naming: not a second, with a longo sed proximus intervallo, not a young Marcellus, flattered by a poet into a resemblance of the first, with a frons læta parum, et dejecto lumina vultu, and the rest that follows,si qua fata aspera rumpas, Tu Marcellus eris; but a person of the same stamp and magnitude, who owes nothing to the former besides the word Roman, and the superstition of reverence devolving on him by the precedency of eighteen hundred years: one who walks by him with equal paces, and shares the eyes of beholders with him; one who had been first, had he first lived, and in spite of doting veneration is still his equal: both