ne's accuracy has detected a slight
alteration in the verses, as quoted by Dryden, and as written by
Cowley:

If any prouder virtuoso's sense
At that part of my prospect take offence,
By which the meaner cabanes are descried
Of my imperial river's humbler side;
If they call that a blemish, let them know,
God and my godlike mistress think not so;
For the distressed and the afflicted lie
Most in _their care_, and always in _their_ eye.

3. Our poet's house was in Gerard-Street, looking upon the gardens of
Leicester-House.

THE

PREFACE.

Whether it happened through a long disuse of writing, that I forgot
the usual compass of a play, or that, by crowding it with characters
and incidents, I put a necessity upon myself of lengthening the main
action, I know not; but the first day's audience sufficiently
convinced me of my error, and that the poem was insupportably too
long. It is an ill ambition of us poets, to please an audience with
more than they can bear; and supposing that we wrote as well as vainly
we imagine ourselves to write, yet we ought to consider, that no man
can bear to be long tickled. There is a nauseousness in a city-feast,
when we are to sit four hours after we are cloyed. I am therefore, in
the first place, to acknowledge, with all manner of gratitude, their
civility, who were pleased to endure it with so much patience; to be
weary with so much good-nature and silence; and not to explode an
entertainment which was designed to please them, or discourage an
author, whose misfortunes have once more brought him, against his
will, upon the stage. While I continue in these bad circumstances,
(and, truly, I see very little probability of coming out) I must be
obliged to write; and if I may still hope for the same kind usage, I
shall the less repent of that hard necessity. I write not this out of
any expectation to be pitied, for I have enemies enow to wish me yet
in a worse condition; but give me leave to say, that if I can please
by writing, as I shall endeavour it, the town may be somewhat obliged
to my misfortunes for a part of their diversion. Having been longer
acquainted with the stage than any poet now living, and having
observed how difficult it was to please; that the humours of comedy
were almost spent; that love and honour (the mistaken topics of
tragedy) were quite worn out