der to all years and ages; and, who have built yourselves an immortal monument on your own ruins. You are now a Phoenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the fuffering Deity: but heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miferable. I have heard, indeed, of fome virtuous perfons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation: Providence is engaged too deeply, when the cause becomes fo general; and I cannot imagine it has refolved the ruin of that people at home, which it has bleffed abroad with fuch fucceffes. I am therefore to conclude, that your fufferings are at an end; and that one part of my poem has not been more an history of your destruction, than the other a prophecy of your reftoration. The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, fo is it by none more paffionately defired, than by,

The greatest of your admirers,

And most humble of your fervants,

JOHN DRYDEN.

AM fo many ways obliged to you, and fo

IA

little able to return your favours, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been folicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long fince I gave you the trouble of perufing a play for me, and now, instead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But fince you are to bear this perfecution, I will at leaft give you the

encouragement of a martyr; you could never fuffer in a nobler cause. For I have chosen the most heroic fubject, which any poet could defire: I have taken upon me to defcribe the motives, the beginning, progrefs, and fucceffes, of a moft just and neceffary war; in it, the care, management, and prudence of our king; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and three glorious victories, the refult of all. After this, I have, in the Fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagined: the de* ftruction being fo fwift, fo fudden, fo vaft and miferable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is buta due expiation for my not serving my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged

to it and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobles of France would never fuffer in their peasants. I fhould not have written this but to a perfon, who has been ever forward to appear in all employments, whither his honour and generosity have

called him. The latter part of my poem, which

defcribes the Fire, I owe, firft to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his fuffering fubjects; and, in the fecond place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both which were fo confpicuous, that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. I have called my poem Hiftorical, not Epic, though both the actions and actors are as much heroic as any poem can contain. But fince the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the last fucceffes, I have judged it too bold a title for a few ftanzas, which are little more in number than a fingle Iliad, or the longest of the Æneids. For this reafon (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too feverely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with thofe, who rank Lucan, rather among historians in verfe, than Epic poets: in whofe room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chofen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the found and number, than any other verfe in ufe amongst us; in

which I am fure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the flavery of any rhyme, and were lefs constrained in the quantity of every fyllable, which they might vary with fpondees or dactyls, befides fo many other helps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one fyllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the sense of all the reft. But in this neceffity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verse most easy, though not fo proper for this occafion for there the work is fooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labour of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only fo, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together. For thofe, who write correctly in this kind, muft needs acknowlege, that the laft line of the ftanza is to be confidered in the compofition of the firft. Neither can we give our felves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the fake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes; all which our fathers