DEDICATION OF LIMBER HAM, OR, THE KIND KEEPER.' TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN, LORD VAUGHAN, &c. MY LORD, I CANNOT CANNOT easily excuse the printing of a play at so unseasonable a time, when the great plot of the nation," like one of Pharaoh's lean kine, has devoured its younger brethren of the stage. But however weak my defence might be for this, I am sure I should not need any to the 5 This comedy (which has no preface) was acted at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Garden, and was first printed in 1678. 6 John, Lord Vaughan, was at this time the eldest surviving son of Richard, Earl of Carbery; his elder brother, Francis, having been some time dead. He had been made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles the Second, and was for some time Governor of Jamaica.— Nov. 30, 1686, he was elected President of the Royal Society; and filled that office till Nov. 30, 1689, when he was succeeded by Thomas, Earl of Pembroke.-The and died Sep. world for my Dedication to your Lordship; and Agit, pessimus omnium poeta; Tanto pessimus omnium poeta, Quanto tu optimus omnium patronus. I have seen an Epistle of Flecknoe's to a nobleman, who was by some extraordinary chance a scholar, (and you may please to take notice by the way, how natural the connexion of thought is betwixt a bad poet and Flecknoe,) where he begins thus: Quatuordecim jam elapsi sunt anni, &c. his Latin, it seems, not holding out to the end of the sentence; but he endeavoured to tell his patron, betwixt two languages, which he understood alike, that it was fourteen years since he had the hap 8 latter part of his life, which was devoted to retirement and literature, he spent at a house which he built at Chelsea, where he died on the 16th of January, 1712-13; leaving only a daughter, who after her father's death married Charles, Marquis of Winchester (afterwards Duke of Bolton) The title of Carbery became extinct. 20,1757. 7 The Popish Plot, August, 1678. Though I have examined several pieces published by Flecknoe, I have not been able to discover the Epistle here alluded to. In his "Relation of Ten Years' Travels," &c. is a letter to Cardinal Barberini, the first sentence of which is in Latin, and the remainder in English. piness to know him. It is just so long, (and as happy be the omen of dulness to me, as it is to some clergymen and statesmen !) since your Lordship has known that there is a worse poet remaining in the world than he of scandalous memory who left it last." I might enlarge upon the subject with my author, and assure you, that I have served as long for you as one of the patriarchs did for his Old-Testament mistress; but I leave those flourishes, when occasion shall serve, for a greater orator to use; and dare only tell you, that I never passed any part of my life with greater satisfaction or improvement to myself than those years which I have lived in the honour of your Lordship's acquaintance, if I may have only the time abated, when the publick service called you to another part of the world, which, in imitation of our florid speakers, I might, if I durst presume upon the expression, call the parenthesis of my life. That I have always honoured you, I suppose I Jamaica. need not tell you at this time of day; for you know Jading. I staid not to date my respects to you from that title which now you have, and to which you bring a greater addition by your merit than you receive from it by the name; but I am proud to let others know how long it is that I have been made happy 9 The meaning here is somewhat obscure. I suppose Richard Flecknoe died in the summer of 1678: but to assert gravely that our author was a worse poet than Flecknoe, seems very strange. D to the Hables he says, with more propriety, that while he and Mibou live; he is sure of not being worst post in the world. of not bring thought the by my knowledge of you, because I am sure it will give me a reputation with the present age and with posterity. And now, my Lord, I know you are afraid lest I should take this occasion, which lies so fair for me, to acquaint the world with some of those excellencies which I have admired in you; but I have reasonably considered, that to acquaint the world is a phrase of a malicious meaning: for it would imply that the world were not already acquainted with them. You are so generally known to be above the meanness of my praises, that you have spared my evidence, and spoiled my compliment: should I take for my commonplaces your knowledge both of the old and the new philosophy; should I add to these your skill in mathematicks and history, and yet farther, your being conversant with all the ancient authors of the Greek and Latin tongues, as well as with the modern, I should tell nothing new to mankind; for when I have but once named you, the world will anticipate all my commendations, and go faster before me than I can follow. Be therefore secure, my Lord, that your own fame has freed itself from the danger of a panegyrick; and only give me leave to tell you, that I value the candour of your nature, and that one character of friendliness, and, if I may have leave to call it, kindness in you, before all those other which make you considerable in the nation. Some few of our nobility are learned, and therefore I will not conclude an absolute contra |