University of Virginia Library

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD VISCOUNT CHARLEMONT.

My Lord,

It is generally expected that there should be some relation between the character of the patron and the nature of the work, for which protection is solicited.

But this law, like many others, is broken when it opposes the gratification of passions too strong for the restraints of regularity. Ambition, which often overpowers the judgment in questions of more importance, has made me forget the disproportion between Your Lordship's name, and a Dramatic Pastoral; and I have ventured to lay before You a composition of little dignity in the design, and perhaps of little elegance in the execution.

Yet for whatever we resolve, we labour to find reasons,

till in time we forget its impropriety; I begin to hope, that by offering to Your Lordship a performance of an airy and luxuriant kind, which can at best hope only for excuse, I expose myself less to the imputation of arrogance, than if I had prefixed Your name to a piece more grave and ostentatious, which might have been suspected of pretending to approbation.

I am, my Lord, far from imagining that any of my ideas can be new to Your extensive knowledge, or that I have attained any beauties of style or

sentiment adequate to Your delicacy of taste. The merit of this Poem is but small in my own opinion, and yet, of the little praise which it may receive, I must resign a part, by confessing that the first hint was taken from the Pastor Fido, and that the two songs marked with asterisks , were written by another hand.

Whatever praise this confession may detract from my abilities, it will add to my sincerity; and I should discover little knowledge of Your Lordship, if I should endeavour to

recommend myself, rather by elevation of genius than by purity of manners.