in all the sallies of their passions; yet, you make destinies for them, which they cannot shun. They are moved, if I may dare to say so, like the rational creatures of the Almighty Poet; who walk at liberty, in their own opinion, because their fetters are invincible: when, indeed, the Prison of their Will is the more sure, for being large; and instead of an Absolute Power over their actions, they have only a Wretched Desire of doing that, which they cannot choose but do. I have dwelt, my Lord! thus long, upon your Writing; not because you deserve not greater and more noble commendations, but because I am not equally able to express them in other subjects. Like an ill swimmer, I have willingly stayed long in my own depth; and though I am eager of performing more, yet I am loath to venture out beyond my knowledge. For beyond your Poetry, my Lord! all is Ocean to me. To speak of you as a Soldier, or a Statesman, were only to betray my own ignorance: and I could hope no better success from it, than that miserable Rhetorician had, who solemnly declaimed before HANNIBAL "of the Conduct of Armies, and the Art of War." I can only say, in general, that the Souls of other men shine out at little cranies; they understand some one thing, perhaps, to admiration, while they are darkened on all the other parts: but your Lordship's Soul is an entire Globe of Light, breaking out on every side; and if I have only discovered one beam of it, 'tis not that the light falls unequally, but because the body which receives it, is of unequal parts. The acknowledgement of which, is a fair occasion offered me, to retire from the consideration of your Lordship to that of myself. I here present you, my Lord! with that in Print, which you had the goodness not to dislike upon the Stage; and account it happy to have met you here in England: it being, at best, like small wines, to be drunk out upon the place [i.e., _of vintage, where produced_]; and has not body enough to endure the sea. I know not, whether I have been so careful of the Plot and Language, as I ought: but for the latter, I have endeavoured to write English, as near as I could distinguish it from the tongue of pedants, and that of affected travellers. Only, I am sorry that, speaking so noble a language as we do, we have not a more certain Measure of it, as they have in France: where they have an "Academy" erected for that purpose, and endowed with large privileges by the present King [_LOUIS XIV._]. I wish, we might, at length, leave to borrow words from other nations; which is now a wantonness in us, not a necessity: but so long as some affect to speak them, there will not want others who will have the boldness to write them. But I fear, lest defending the received words; I shall be accused for following the New Way: I mean, of writing Scenes in Verse; though, to speak properly, 'tis no so much a New Way amongst us, as an Old Way new revived. For, many years [i.e., 1561] before SHAKESPEARE's Plays, was the Tragedy of _Queen_ [or rather _King_] _GORBODUC_ [_of which, however, the