Audience shall think them lost under every billow: and then, at length,
to work them so naturally out of their distresses, that when the whole
Plot is laid open, the Spectators may rest satisfied that every Cause was
powerful enough to produce the Effect it had; and that the whole Chain of
them was, with such due order, linked together, that the first Accident
[_Incident_], would, naturally, beget the second, till they All rendered
the Conclusion necessary.

These difficulties, my Lord! may reasonably excuse the errors of my
Undertaking: but for this confidence of my Dedication, I have an
argument, which is too advantageous for me not to publish it to the
World. 'Tis the kindness your Lordship has continually shown to all my
writings. You have been pleased, my Lord! they should sometimes cross the
Irish seas, to kiss your hands; which passage, contrary to the experience
of others, I have found the least dangerous in the world. Your favour has
shone upon me, at a remote distance, without the least knowledge of my
person: and, like the influence of the heavenly bodies, you have done
good, without knowing to whom you did it, 'Tis this virtue in your
Lordship, which emboldens me to this attempt. For did I not consider you
as my Patron, I have little reason to desire you for my Judge: and should
appear, with as much awe before you, in the Reading; as I had, when the
full theatre sate upon the Action.

For who so severely judge of faults, as he who has given testimony he
commits none? Your excellent _Poems_ having afforded that knowledge of it
to the World, that your enemies are ready to upbraid you with it as a
crime, for a Man of Business to write so well. Neither durst I have
justified your Lordship in it, if examples of it had not been in the
world before you: If XENOPHON had not written a Romance; and a certain
Roman, called AUGUSTUS CAESAR, a Tragedy and Epigrams. But their writing
was the entertainment of their pleasure; yours is only a diversion of
your pain. The Muses have seldom employed your thoughts, but when some
violent fit of the gout has snatched you from Affairs of State: and, like
the priestess of APOLLO, you never come to deliver his oracles, but
unwillingly, and in torment. So that we are obliged to your Lordship's
misery, for our delight. You treat us with the cruel pleasure of a
Turkish triumph, where those who cut and wound their bodies, sing songs
of victory as they pass; and divert others with their