The Epistle Dedicatory.
who is just and moderate in his Nature, who Rules according to the Laws, whom God made Happy by Forming the Temper of His Soul to the Constitution of his Government, and who makes us happy, by assuming over us no other Soveraignty than that wherein our Welfare and Liberty consists; a Prince, I say, of so excellent a Character, and so suitable to the Wishes of all Good Men, could not better have convey'd Himself into his Peoples Apprehensions, than in your Lordships Person; who so lively express the same Virtues, that you seem not so much a Copy, as an Emanation of Him. Moderation is doubtless an Establishment of Greatness; but there is a steadiness of temper which is likewise requisite in a Minister of State: so equal a mixture of both Virtues, that he may stand like an Isthmus betwixt the two encroaching Seas of Arbitrary Power, and Lawless Anarchy. The Undertaking would be difficult to any but an extraordinary Genius, to stand at the Line, and to divide the Limits; to pay what is due to the Great Representative of the Nation, and neither to inhance, nor to yeild up the undoubted Prerogatives of the Crown. These, My Lord, are the proper Virtues of a Noble Englishman, as indeed they are properly English Virtues: No People in the World being capable of using them, but we who have the happiness to be born under so equal, and so well-pois'd a Government. A Government which has all the Advantages of Liberty beyond a Commonwealth, and all the Marks of Kingly Sovereignty without the danger of a Tyranny. Both my Nature, as I am an Englishman, and my Reason, as I am a Man, have bred in me a loathing to that specious Name of a Republick: that mock-appearance of a Liberty, where all who have not part in the Government, are Slaves: And Slaves they are of a viler note than such as are Subjects to an absolute Do-
