that I may not say
malice) of its enemies. But though a character so high and undeserved
has not raised in me the presumption to offer such a trifle to his
most serious view, yet I will own the vanity to say, that after this
glory which it has received from a sovereign prince, I could not send
it to seek protection from any subject. Be this poem, then, sacred to
him, without the tedious form of a dedication, and without presuming
to interrupt those hours which he is daily giving to the peace and
settlement of his people.

For what else concerns this play, I would tell the reader, that it is
regular, according to the strictest of dramatic laws; but that it is
a commendation which many of our poets now despise, and a beauty which
our common audiences do not easily discern. Neither indeed do I value
myself upon it; because, with all that symmetry of parts, it may want
an air and spirit (which consists in the writing) to set it off. 'Tis
a question variously disputed, whether an author may be allowed as a
competent judge of his own works. As to the fabric and contrivance
of them, certainly he may; for that is properly the employment of
the judgment; which, as a master-builder, he may determine, and that
without deception, whether the work be according to the exactness of
the model; still granting him to have a perfect idea of that pattern
by which he works, and that he keeps himself always constant to the
discourse of his judgment, without admitting self-love, which is
the false surveyor of his fancy, to intermeddle in it. These
qualifications granted (being such as all sound poets are presupposed
to have within them), I think all writers, of what kind soever, may
infallibly judge of the frame and contexture of their works. But
for the ornament of writing, which is greater, more various, and
_bizarre_ in poesy than in any other kind, as it is properly the
child of fancy; so it can receive no measure, or at least but a very
imperfect one, of its own excellences or failures from the judgment.
Self-love (which enters but rarely into the offices of the judgment)
here predominates; and fancy (if I may so speak), judging of itself,
can be no more certain, or demonstrative of its own effects, than two
crooked lines can be the adequate measure of each other. What I
have said on this subject may, perhaps, give me some credit with my
readers, in my opinion of this play, which I have ever valued above
the rest of my follies of this k