interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in performing this inconfiderable fervice to my lady's memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we please; but must wait till the God comes rushing on us, and invades us with a fury which we are not able to refift: which gives us double ftrength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent at its departure. Let me not seem to boaft, my lord; for I have really felt it on this occafion, and prophefied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me while I was writing. I fwam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will eafily obferve, that I was transported by the multitude and variety of my fimilitudes; which are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonnefs of wit. Had I called in my judgment to my affiftance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pafs for beautiful faults amongst the better fort of critics for the whole poem, though written in that which they call Heroic verfe, is of the Pindaric nature, as well in the thought as the expreffion; and, as fuch, requires the fame grains of allowance for it. It was intended, as your lordship fees in the title, not for an elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of apotheofis, indeed, if a Heathen word may be applied to a Christian ufe. And on all occafions of praife, if we take the Ancients for for our patterns, we are bound by prefcription to employ the magnificence of words, and the force of figures, to adorn the fublimity of thoughts. Ifecrates amongst the Grecian orators, and Cicero and the Younger Pliny amongst the Romans, have left us their precedents for our fecurity: for I think I need not mention the inimitable Pindar, who stretches on thefe pinions out of fight, and is carried upward, as it were, into another world. This, at least, my lord, I may justly plead, that, if I have not performed fo well as I think I have, yet I have ufc my best endeavours to excel myself. One disadvantage I have had; which is, never to have known or feen my lady: and to draw the lineaments of her mind from the defcription which I have received from others, is for a painter to fet himself at work without the living original before him: which, the more beautiful it is, will be fo much the more difficult for him to conceive, when he has only a relation given him of fuch and fuch features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches which give the best refemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artift is apt enough to flatter himself (and I amongst the reft) that their own ocular obfervations would have difcovered more perfections, at leaft others, than have been delivered to them: though I have received mine from the best hands, that is, from perfons who neither want a just understanding of my lady's worth, nor a due veneration for her memory. Doctor Donne, the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet of our nation, acknowledges, that he had never feen Mrs. Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable Anniverfaries. I have had the fame fortune, though I have not fucceeded to the fame genius. However, I have followed his footsteps in the defign of his panegyric; which was to raise an emulation in the living, to copy out the example of the dead. And therefore it was, that I once intended to have called this poem, "The Pattern:" and though, on a second confideration, I changed the title into the name of the illuftrious perfon, yet the design continues, and Eleonora is ftill the pattern of charity, devotion, and humility; of the best wife, the best mother, and the beft of friends. And now, my lord, though I have endeavoured to answer your commands, yet I could not answer it to the world, nor to my confcience, if I gave not your lordship my teftimony of being the best husband now living: I fay my teftimony only; for the praise of it is given you by yourself. They who defpife the rules of virtue both in their practice and their morals, will think this a very trivial commendation. But I think it the peculiar happiness of the Countefs of Abingdon, to have been fo truly loved by you while she was living, and so gratefully honoured after he was dead. Few there are who have either had, or could have, fuch a lofs; and yet fewer who carried their love and conftancy beyond the grave. The exteriors of mourning, a decent funeral, and black habits, are the ufual ftints of common hufbands and perhaps their wives deferve no better than to be mourned with hypocrify, and forgot with eafe. But you have diftinguished yourself from ordi : nary nary lovers, by a real and lasting grief for the deceased; and by endeavouring to raise for her the most durable monument, which is that of verfe. And fo it would have proved, if the workman had been equal to the work, and your choice of the artificer as happy as your defign. Yet, as Phidias, when he had made the ftatue of Minerva, could not forbear to ingrave his own name, as author of the piece: fo give me leave to hope that, by subscribing mine to this poem, I may live by the goddess, and transmit my name to posterity by the memory of hers. 'Tis no flattery to affure your lordship, that he is remembered, in the prefent age, by all who have had the honour of her converfation and acquaintance; and that I have never been in any company, fince the news of her death was first brought me, where they have not extolled her virtues, and even fpoken the fame things of her in profe which I have done in verfe. I therefore think myself obliged to thank your lordfhip for the commission which you have given me : how I have acquitted myself of it, must be left to the opinion of the world, in spite of any protestation which I can enter against the present age, as incompetent or corrupt judges. For my comfort, they are but Englishmen, and, as fuch, if they think ill of me to-day, they are inconftant enough to think well of me to-morrow. And, after all, I have not much to thank my fortune that I was born amongst them, The good of both fexes are fo few in England, that they ftand like exceptions againft general rules: and though one of them has de ferved a greater commendation than I could give her, they have taken care that I should not tire my pen with frequent exercise on the like subjects; that praises, like taxes, fhould be appropriated, and left almost as individual as the perfon. They fay, my talent is fatire : if it be fo, it is a fruitful age, and there is an extraordinary crop to gather. But a fingle hand is infufficient for fuch a harveft: they have fown the dragon's teeth themselves, and it is but just they should reap each other in lampoons. You, my lord, who have the character of honour, though it is not my happiness to know you, may ftand afide, with the small remainders of the English nobility, truly fuch, and, unhurt yourfelves, behold the mad combat. If I have pleafed you, and fome few others, I have obtained my end. You fee I have difabled myself, like an elected Speaker of the House: yet like him I have undertaken the charge, and find the burden fufficiently recompenfed by the honour. Be pleased to accept of these my unworthy labours, this paper-monument; and let her pious memory, which I am fure is facred to you, not only plead the pardon of my many faults, but gain me your protection, which is ambitiously fought by, My Lord, Your Lordship's Moft obedient fervant, ELEO. |