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you have likewise found the way, by an untainted preservation of your
honour, to make that perishable good more lasting: And if beauty, like
wines, could be preserved, by being mixed and embodied with others of
their own natures, then your grace's would be immortal, since no
part of Europe can afford a parallel to your noble lord in masculine
beauty, and in goodliness of shape. To receive the blessings and
prayers of mankind, you need only to be seen together: We are ready
to conclude, that you are a pair of angels sent below to make virtue
amiable in your persons, or to sit to poets when they would pleasantly
instruct the age, by drawing goodness in the most perfect and alluring
shape of nature. But though beauty be the theme on which poets love to
dwell, I must be forced to quit it as a private praise, since you have
deserved those which are more public: For goodness and humanity, which
shine in you, are virtues which concern mankind; and, by a certain
kind of interest, all people agree in their commendation, because the
profit of them may extend to many. It is so much your inclination to
do good, that you stay not to be asked; which is an approach so nigh
the Deity, that human nature is not capable of a nearer. It is my
happiness, that I can testify this virtue of your grace's by my
own experience; since I have so great an aversion from soliciting
court-favours, that I am ready to look on those as very bold, who
dare grow rich there without desert. But I beg your grace's pardon for
assuming this virtue of modesty to myself, which the sequel of this
discourse will no way justify: For in this address I have already
quitted the character of a modest man, by presenting you this poem as
an acknowledgment, which stands in need of your protection; and which
ought no more to be esteemed a present, than it is accounted bounty
in the poor, when they bestow a child on some wealthy friend, who
will better breed it up. Offsprings of this nature are like to be so
numerous with me, that I must be forced to send some of them abroad;
only this is like to be more fortunate than his brothers, because I
have landed him on a hospitable shore. Under your patronage Montezuma
hopes he is more safe than in his native Indies; and therefore comes
to throw himself at your grace's feet, paying that homage to your
beauty, which he refused to the violence of his conquerors. He begs
only, that when he shall relate his sufferings, you will consider