But the greatest trials of your courage and constancy were yet to come: Many had ventured their fortunes, and exposed their lives to the utmost dangers for their king and country, who ended their loyalty with the war; and, submitting to the iniquity of the times, chose rather to redeem their former plenty, by acknowledging an usurper, than to suffer with an unprofitable fidelity (as those meaner spirits called it) for their lawful sovereign. But, as I dare not accuse so many of our nobility, who were content to accept their patrimonies from the clemency of the conqueror, and to retain only a secret veneration for their prince, amidst the open worship which they were forced to pay to the usurper, who had dethroned him; so, I hope, I may have leave to extol that virtue which acted more generously; and which was not satisfied with an inward devotion to monarchy, but produced itself to view, and asserted the cause by open martyrdom. Of these rare patterns of loyalty, your grace was chief: Those examples you could not find, you made. Some few Cato's there were with you, whose invincible resolution could not be conquered by that usurping Cæsar. Your virtue opposed itself to his fortune, and overcame it, by not submitting to it. The last and most difficult enterprize he had to effect, when he had conquered three nations, was to subdue your spirit; and he died weary of that war, and unable to finish it. In the mean time, you lived more happily in your exile, than the other on his throne. Your loyalty made you friends and servants amongst foreigners; and you lived plentifully without a fortune; for you lived on your own desert and reputation. The glorious name of the valiant and faithful Newcastle, was a patrimony which could never be exhausted. Thus, my lord, the morning of your life was clear and calm; and, though it was afterwards overcast, yet, in that general storm, you were never without a shelter. And now you are happily arrived to the evening of a day, as serene as the dawn of it was glorious; but such an evening as, I hope, and almost prophecy, is far from night: Tis the evening of a summer's sun, which keeps the day-light long within the skies. The health of your body is maintained by the vigour of your mind: Neither does the one shrink from the fatigue of exercise, nor the other bend under the pains of study. Methinks, I behold in you another Caius Marius, who, in the extremity of his age, exercised himself almost every morning in the Campus Martius, amongst the youthful nobility of Rome. And afterwards in your retirements, when you do honour to poetry, by employing part of your leisure in it, I regard you as another Silius Italicus, who, having passed over his consulship with applause, dismissed himself from business, and from the gown, and employed his age, amongst the shades, in the reading and imitation of Virgil. In which, lest any thing should be wanting to your happiness, you have, by a rare effect of fortune, found, in the person of your excellent lady, not only a lover, but a partner of your studies; a lady whom our age may justly equal with the Sappho of the Greeks, or the Sulpitia of the Romans; who, by being taken into your bosom, seems to be inspired with your genius; and, by writing the history of your life*, in so masculine a * The duchess wrote her husband's Life, which was translated into Latin. It is certainly the best of her grace's performances. style, has already placed you in the number of the heroes. She has anticipated that great portion of fame, which envy often hinders a living virtue from possessing; which would, indeed, have been given to your ashes, but with a later payment; and of which you could have no present use, except it were by a secret presage of that which was to come, when you were no longer in a possibility of knowing it. So that if that were a praise, or satisfaction to the greatest of emperors, which the most judicious of poets gives him Præsenti tibi maturos largimur honores, &c. that the adoration, which was not allowed to Hercules and Romulus till after death, was given to Augustus living, then certainly it cannot be denied, but that your grace has received a double satisfaction: the one, to see yourself consecrated to immortality while you are yet alive; the other, to have your praises celebrated by so dear, so just, and so pious an historian. It is the consideration of this that stops my pen; though I am loth to leave so fair a subject, which gives me as much field as poetry could wish, and yet no more than truth can justify. But to attempt any thing of a panegyric, were to enterprize on your lady's right; and to seem to affect those praises, which none but the duchess of Newcastle can deserve, when she writes the actions of her lord. I shall, therefore, leave that wider space, and contract myself to those narrow bounds, which best become my fortune and employment. I am obliged, my lord, to return you not only my own acknowledgments, but to thank you in the names of former poets; the manes of Jonson and D'Avenant seem to require it from me, that those favours, which you placed you placed on them, and which they wanted opportunity to own in public, yet might not be lost to the knowledge of posterity, with a forgetfulness unbecoming of the Muses, who are the daughters of memory. And give me leave, my lord, to avow so much of vanity, as to say, I am proud to be their remembrancer: For, by relating how gracious you have been to them, and are to me, I, in some measure, join my name with theirs: And the continued descent of your favours to me is the best title which I can plead for my succession. I only wish, that I had as great reason to be satisfied with myself, in the return of our common acknowledgments, as your grace may justly take in the conferring them: For I cannot but be very sensible, that the present of an ill comedy, which I here make you, is a very unsuitable way of giving thanks for them, who, themselves, have written so many better. This pretends to nothing more, than to be a foil to those scenes, which are composed by the most noble poet of our age nation; and to be set as a water-mark of the lowest ebb, to which the wit of my predecessor has sunk, and run down in me. But, though all of them have surpassed me in the scene, there is one part of glory, in which I will not yield to any them: I mean, my lord, that honour and veneration which they had for you in their lives; and which I preserve after them, more holily than the and of * Jonson and D'Avenant were both protected by the duke of Newcastle. Jonson has addressed several verses to him, and composed a Masque for the splendid entertainment which he gave to Charles I., at his house at Wellbeck, when the king was on his first northern journey. |