arras, and died without issue in 1662. In 1665, Anne,
countess of Buccleuch, married James Fitzroy, duke of Monmouth, eldest
natural son of Charles II. They were afterwards created duke and
duchess of Buccleuch. She was an accomplished and high-spirited lady,
distinguished for her unblemished conduct in a profligate court.
It was her patronage which first established Dryden's popularity; a
circumstance too honourable to her memory to be here suppressed.]

May it please Your Grace,
The favour which heroic plays have lately found upon our theatres, has
been wholly derived to them from the countenance and approbation they
have received at court. The most eminent persons for wit and honour
in the royal circle having so far owned them, that they have judged
no way so fit as verse to entertain a noble audience, or to express
a noble passion; and among the rest which have been written in this
kind, they have been so indulgent to this poem, as to allow it no
inconsiderable place. Since, therefore, to the court I owe its fortune
on the stage; so, being now more publicly exposed in print, I humbly
recommend it to your grace's protection, who by all knowing persons
are esteemed a principal ornament of the court. But though the rank
which you hold in the royal family might direct the eyes of a poet to
you, yet your beauty and goodness detain and fix them. High objects,
it is true, attract the sight; but it looks up with pain on craggy
rocks and barren mountains, and continues not intent on any object,
which is wanting in shades and greens to entertain it. Beauty, in
courts, is so necessary to the young, that those, who are without it,
seem to be there to no other purpose than to wait on the triumphs of
the fair; to attend their motions in obscurity, as the moon and stars
do the sun by day; or, at best, to be the refuge of those hearts which
others have despised; and, by the unworthiness of both, to give and
take a miserable comfort. But as needful as beauty is, virtue and
honour are yet more: The reign of it without their support is unsafe
and short, like that of tyrants. Every sun which looks on beauty
wastes it; and, when it once is decaying, the repairs of art are of as
short continuance, as the after-spring, when the sun is going
further off. This, madam, is its ordinary fate; but yours, which is
accompanied by virtue, is not subject to that common destiny. Your
grace has not only a long time of youth in which to flourish, bu