TO HIS MAJESTY
LOUIS,
KING OF ETRURIA, HEREDITARY PRINCE OF
PARMA, INFANT OF SPAIN, &c. &c. &c.
SIRE,
I avail myself of the opportunity of a ship sailing from New-York
for Leghorn, to transmit my thanks for the flattering manner
in which your Majesty has communicated to me, in your letter,
dated at Florence, the 15th of February last, how much you
should be gratified by receiving the dedication of my poem “on
the Love of Country.” For presenting that work on a subject,
by which all nations are affected, although as here treated, it is
particularly applicable to my countrymen, I did not apologize.
Sentiments of true policy, and principles of pure morality, ought
to be equally acceptable in all regions of the earth, and with all
descriptions of its inhabitants. Or if any difference is to be allowed,
I will be bold to assert, such sentiments and principles
claim the peculiar protection of well informed and beneficent potentates,
because peculiarly great are their faculties for doing
good, and extensive their spheres of action.
Your modesty, Sire, must permit me to say, that your patronage
of those fine arts and elegant letters which have rendered the
names of the former chief magistrates at Florence for ever famous,
would afford the most ample theme for eulogium on this occasion;
and the interest which your Majesty so kindly takes in my welfare,
removed, as I am, at such an immense distance from your
royal residence, could not fail to furnish increasing motives for
indulging my inclination to celebrate the splendid and amiable qualities
which so eminently unite in your character as a monarch
and a man. But a fear of trespassing on the more precious distribution
of your time, confines me simply to professing my sensibility
of your favours, and offering my prayers for the felicity of
your august person and family. May yours and theirs be the
continued blessings of that Being “by whom kings reign and
princes decree justice!”
While I thus make an effort to convey the proofs of my grateful
feelings, by a vehicle so frail as this paper, across the vast
Atlantic Ocean, from the lately obscure nursery of infant improvements
in the new world, to the long celebrated
cradle of reviving
literature in the old, deign, oh King! to accept them as the
pledges of the perfect respect, entire devotion, and, if I might
be permitted a reciprocal expression, “the sentiments of sincere
attachment,” with which
I have the honour to be,
Your Majesty's most obedient,
And most humble servant,
D. HUMPHREYS.
New-Haven,
December 1, 1802.
[_]
Since the death of the amiable and enlightened sovereign to whom this poem was addressed, it is deemed not improper to annex the following letter, copied from the original in his own hand writing, to the author.
