nd when there were in being, _Teucri pulcherrima proles,
magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis_. No envy can detract from this:
it will shine in history, and, like swans, grow whiter the longer it
endures, and the name of ORMOND will be more celebrated in his captivity
than in his greatest triumphs.

But all actions of your Grace are of a piece, as waters keep the tenor
of their fountains: your compassion is general, and has the same effect
as well on enemies as friends. It is so much in your nature to do good,
that your life is but one continued act of placing benefits on many, as
the sun is always carrying his light to some part or other of the world;
and were it not that your reason guides you where to give, I might
almost say that you could not help bestowing more than is consisting
with the fortune of a private man or with the will of any but an
Alexander.

What wonder is it, then, that being born for a blessing to mankind, your
supposed death in that engagement was so generally lamented through the
nation! The concernment for it was as universal as the loss; and though
the gratitude might be counterfeit in some, yet the tears of all were
real: where every man deplored his private part in that calamity, and
even those who had not tasted of your favours, yet built so much on the
fame of your beneficence, that they bemoaned the loss of their
expectations.

This brought the untimely death of your great father into fresh
remembrance: as if the same decree had passed on two short successive
generations of the virtuous; and I repeated to myself the same verses
which I had formerly applied to him: _Ostendunt terris hunc tantum fata,
nec ultra esse sinunt_. But to the joy, not only of all good men, but of
mankind in general, the unhappy omen took not place. You are still
living to enjoy the blessings and applause of all the good you have
performed, the prayers of multitudes whom you have obliged, for your
long prosperity; and that your power of doing generous and charitable
actions may be as extended as your will; which is by none more zealously
desired than by your Grace's most humble, most obliged, and most
obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.

* * * * *

PREFACE.

It is with a poet as with a man who designs to build, and is very exact,
as he supposes, in casting up the cost beforehand; but, generally
speaking, he is mistaken in his