TO
Greylock's Most Excellent Majesty.
In old times authors were proud of the privilege of
dedicating their works to Majesty. A right noble custom,
which we of Berkshire must revive. For whether we will
or no, Majesty is all around us here in Berkshire, sitting as
in a grand Congress of Vienna of majestical hill-tops, and
eternally challenging our homage.
But since the majestic mountain, Greylock—my own
more immediate sovereign lord and king—hath now, for innumerable
ages, been the one grand dedicatee of the earliest
rays of all the Berkshire mornings, I know not how his Imperial
Purple Majesty (royal-born: Porphyrogenitus) will receive
the dedication of my own poor solitary ray.
Nevertheless, forasmuch as I, dwelling with my loyal
neighbors, the Maples and the Beeches, in the amphitheater
over which his central majesty presides, have received his
most bounteous and unstinted fertilizations, it is but meet,
that I here devoutly kneel, and render up my gratitude,
whether, thereto, The Most Excellent Purple Majesty of Greylock
benignantly incline his hoary crown or no.
