s himself to so great
a judge of wit, I may hope at least to escape with the excuse of
Catullus, when he writ to Cicero:

_Gratias tibi maximas Catullus
Agit, pessimus omnium, poeta;
Tanto pessimus omnium poeta,
Quanto tu optimns omnium patronus._

I have seen an epistle of Flecknoe's to a nobleman, who was by some
extraordinary chance a scholar; (and you may please to take notice by
the way, how natural the connection of thought is betwixt a bad poet
and Flecknoe) where he begins thus: _Quatuordecim jam elapsi sunt
anni,_ &c.; his Latin, it seems, not holding out to the end of the
sentence: but he endeavoured to tell his patron, betwixt two languages
which he understood alike, that it was fourteen years since he had the
happiness to know him. It is just so long, (and as happy be the omen
of dulness to me, as it is to some clergymen and statesmen!) since
your lordship has known, that there is a worse poet remaining in the
world, than he of scandalous memory, who left it last[3]. I might
enlarge upon the subject with my author, and assure you, that I have
served as long for you, as one of the patriarchs did for his
Old-Testament mistress; but I leave those flourishes, when occasion
shall serve, for a greater orator to use, and dare only tell you, that
I never passed any part of my life with greater satisfaction or
improvement to myself, than those years which I have lived in the
honour of your lordship's acquaintance; if I may have only the time
abated when the public service called you to another part of the
world, which, in imitation of our florid speakers, I might (if I durst
presume upon the expression) call the _parenthesis of my life_.

That I have always honoured you, I suppose I need not tell you at this
time of day; for you know I staid not to date my respects to you from
that title which now you have, and to which you bring a greater
addition by your merit, than you receive from it by the name; but I am
proud to let others know, how long it is that I have been made happy
by my knowledge of you; because I am sure it will give me a reputation
with the present age, and with posterity. And now, my lord, I know you
are afraid, lest I should take this occasion, which lies so fair for
me, to acquaint the world with some of those excellencies which I have
admired in you; but I have reasonably considered, that to acquaint the
world, is a phrase of a malicious meaning; for it would imply, that
the world were