 | Timoleon |  |
TO THE KING.
SIR,
WHILE Your People are daily proving the Happiness of Your MAJESTY'S Government, Permit the Muses, by the meanest of their representatives, humbly to implore Your Gracious Influence. They stand, equally with Your other Subjects, in need of Your MAJESTY'S Protection, and have the same Reason to hope for it, the goodness of Your MAJESTY'S Mind.
For some Years, they were look'd on among the Honours of our Country, but have of late been falling insensibly into Neglect. We please our selves now with the Belief, that under Your MAJESTY they will revive again, because the greatest Princes the World has ever known, have made them their Delight; and, finding their Power and Use, have thought proper to encourage them.
SIR,
I shall not lengthen this Dedication, by aiming at a Character I am unequal to: A Character which it becomes me to admire, rather than attempt to draw, and draw imperfectly: I must therefore humbly beg Your MAJESTY'S Pardon for endeavouring to illustrate the Third Act of the play, by copying from Your MAJESTY the Virtues of a King, who is a Blessing to his People.
Too much Presumption, I hope, will not be imputed to me, if I count this among the many Instances of Your MAJESTY'S gracious Disposition, that You have condescended to patronize a Performance, written with an Ambition to render Your People easy under Your Government, to make them æmulous only for Virtue, and to shew them the Value of that Liberty, which is so eminently Your MAJESTY'S Care.
I should not indeed have approach'd Your MAJESTY with a lower Subject, or a Character inferior to TIMOLEON'S. This I chose as the most Beautiful of Antiquity, and as it bears a Resemblance to the most Exalted one of the Present Age, in Courage, in Affability, in the greatest Steadiness of Mind, and sweetness of Temper, in a very early Appearance against Oppression, in being the Glory and Delight of his Country, and in (the greatest distinction of Heroes) a Love for Mankind.
That Your MAJESTY may be like him in a Constant Series of Success, in a Happy lengthen'd Life, and in being in every Thing the peculiar Care of PROVIDENCE; That these Blessings may attend on Her MAJESTY, and on every particular Branch of Your Royal Progeny, are the fervent Prayers and Wishes of,
May it please Your MAJESTY,
| Timoleon | |