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To the Right Honourable,
THOMAS Earl of Danby, Viscount Latimer, and Baron OSBORNE of Kiveton in Yorkshire, Lord High Treasurer of England, One of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council, and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, &c.
My LORD,
HE Gratitude of Poets is so troublesome a Virtue to Great Men, that you are often in danger of your own Benefits: For you are threaten'd with some Epistle, and not suffer'd to do Good in quiet, or to compound for their silence whom you have oblig'd. Yet, I confess, I neither am, nor ought to be surpriz'd at this Indulgence; For your Lordship has the same Right to Favour Poetry which the Great and Noble have ever had.
Carmen amat, quisquis carmine digna gerit.
There is somewhat of a tye in Nature betwixt those who are born for Worthy Actions, and those who can transmit them to Posterity: And though ours be much the inferiour
part,
