EARL of ABINGDON, &c.

MY LORD,

HE commands, with which you honoured me

:

had been fooner; but betwixt ill health, fome bufinefs, and many troubles, I was forced to defer them till this time. Ovid, going to his banishment, and writing from on fhipboard to his friends, excufed the faults of his poetry by his misfortunes; and told them, that good verfes never flow but from a ferene and compofed fpirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings faftened to his head and heels, can fly but flowly in a damp air. I therefore chofe rather to obey you late than ill: if at least I am capable of writing any thing, at any time, which is worthy your perufal and your patronage. I cannot fay that I have escaped from a fhipwreck; but have only gained a rock by hard fwimming; where I may pant a while and gather breath: for the doctors give me a fad affurance, that my difeafe never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in performing this inconfiderable fervice to my lady's memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we please; but must wait until the God comes rushing on us,

and

and invades us with a fury, which we are not able to refift: which gives us double strength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent, at its departure. Let me not feem to boast, my lord, for I have really felt it on this occafion, and prophe fied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the fubject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me, while I was writing. Ifwam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will easily observe, that I was transported by (the multitude and variety of my fimilitudes; which ⚫ are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonnefs of wit. Had I called in my judgement to my affiftance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pafs for beautiful faults amongst the better fort of critics for the whole poem, though written in that which they call Heroic verse, is of the Pindaric na ture, as well in the thought as the expreffion; and, as fuch, requires the fame grains of allowance for it. It was intended, as your lordship fees in the title, not for an elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of hypothefis, indeed, if a heathen word may be applied to a christian use. And on all occafions of praise, if we take the ancients for our patterns, we are bound by prescription to employ the magnificence of words, and the force of figures, to adorn the fublimity of thoughts. Ifocrates amongst the Grecian orators, and Cicero, and the younger Pliny, amongst the Romans, have left us their precedents for our fecurity for I think I need not mention the inimitable Pindar, who ftretches on these pinions out of fight, and is carried upward, as it were, into ano

ther world.

This, at leaft, my lord, I may juftly plead, that, if I have not performed fo well as I think I have, yet I have used my beft endeavours to excel myself. One difadvantage I have had; which is, never to have known or feen my lady: and to draw the lineaments of her mind, from the defcription, which I have received from others, is for a painter to fet himself at work without the living original before him: which, the more beautiful it is, will be fo much the more difficult for him to conceive, when he has only a relation given him of such and fuch features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches, which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artift is apt enough to flatter himself (and I amongst the rest) that their own ocular obfervations would have difcovered more perfections, at leaft others, than have been delivered to them: tho' I have received mine from the beft hands, that is, from perfons who neither want a juft understanding of my lady's worth, nor a due veneration for her memory.

Doctor Donne, the greateft wit, tho' not the greateft poet of our nation, acknowledges, that he had never feen Mrs. Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable Anniverfaries. I have had the fame fortune, tho' I have not fucceeded to the fame genius. However, I have followed his footfteps in the defign of his panegyric; which was to raife an emulation in the living, to copy out the example of the dead. And therefore it was, that I once intended to have called this poem, The Pattern: and tho', on a fecond confideration, I changed the title into the name of the illuftrious perfon, yet the defign continues, and Eleonora is ftill the pattern of charity, devotion, and humility; of the best wife, the best mother, and the best of friends.

And

And now, my lord, tho' I have endeavoured to anfwer your commands, yet I could not answer it to the world, nor to my confcience, if I gave not your lordship my teftimony of being the best husband now living: I fay my teftimony only; for the praise of it is given you by yourfelf. They, who defpife the rules of virtue both in their practice and their morals, will think this a very trivial commendation. But I think it the peculiar happiness of the Countess of Abingdon, to have been fo truly loved by you, while he was living, and fo gratefully honoured, after fhe was dead. Few there are who have either

had, or could have, such a loss; and yet fewer who carried their love and conftancy beyond the grave. The exteriors of mourning, a decent funeral, and black habits, are the ufual ftints of common hufbands and perhaps their wives deferve no better than to be mourned with hypocrify, and forgot with eafe. But you have diftinguished yourself from ordinary lovers, by a real and lafting grief for the deceased; and by endeavouring to raise for her the moft durable monument, which is that of verfe. And fo it would have proved, if the workman had been equal to the work, and your choice of the artificer as happy as your defign. Yet, as Phidias, when he had made the ftatue of Minerva, could not forbear to ingrave his own name, as author of the piece: fo give me leave to hope, that, by fubfcribing mine to this poem, I may live by the goddess, and tranfmit my name to pofterity by the memory of hers. It is no flattery to affure your lord fhip, that he is remembered, in the prefent age, by all who have had the honour of her converfation and acquaintance; and that I have never been in any company fince the news of her death was first brought

me,

me, where they have not extolled her virtues, and even spoken the fame things of her in profe, which

I have done in verse.

I therefore think myself obliged to thank your lordship for the commiffion which you have given me: how I have acquitted myfelf of it, must be left to the opinion of the world, in fpite of any proteftation which I can enter against the prefent age, as incompetent or corrupt judges. For my comfort, they are but Englishmen, and, as fuch, if they think ill of me to-day, they are inconftant enough to think well of me to-morrow. And after all, I have not much to thank my fortune that I was born amongst them. The good of both fexes are fo few, in England, that they ftand like exceptions against general rules: and tho' one of them has deferved a greater commendation than I could give her, they have taken care that I fhould not tire my pen with frequent exercife on the like fubjects; that praifes, like taxes, should be appropriated, and left almost as individual as the perfon. They fay, my talent is fatire: ifit be fo, it is a fruitful age, and there is an extraordinary crop to gather. But a fingle hand is infufficient for fuch a harvest: they have fown the dragons teeth themselves, and it is but juft they should reap each other in lampoons. You, my lord, who have the character of honour, tho' it is not my happiness to know you, may ftand afide, with the fmall remainders of the English nobility, truly fuch, and, unhurt yourselves, behold the mad combat. If I have pleafed you, and fome few others, I have obtained my end. You fee I have difabled myself, like an elected fpeaker of the house: yet like him I have undertaken the charge, and find the burden fufficiently recompenfed by the honour. Be pleased to accept VOL. II.

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