Home to his father's house: There will I build him And to his faithful champion hath in place Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns, And all that band them to resist His uncontrollable intent : His servants he, with new acquist Of true experience, from this great event And calm of mind all passion spent. COMUS. A Mask. PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTLE, 1634, BEFORE JOHN, EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, THEN PRESIDENT OF WALES. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN LORD VISCOUNT BRACKLEY. SON AND HEIR APPARENT TO THE EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, &c. MY LORD, THIS poem, which received its first occasion of birth from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own person in the performance, now returns again to make a final dedication of itself to you. Although not openly acknowledged by the author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely, and so much desired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction, and brought me to a necessity of producing it to the public view; and now to offer it up in all rightful devotion to those fair hopes, and rare endowments of your much promising youth, which give a full assurance, to all that know you, of a future ex cellence. Live, sweet Lord, to be the honour of your name, and receive this as your own, from the hands of him who hath by many favours been long obliged to your most honoured parents, and as in this representation your attendant Thyrsis, so now in all real expression, Your faithful and most humble Servant, DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL R.A. ENGRAVED BY CHARLES ROLLS.. PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE LONDON. JULY 1.18 27. |