The Works of John Dryden | Page 3

wise and brave, but true virtue never will forsake itself[2]. It is the interest of the world, that virtuous men should attain to greatness, because it gives them the power of doing good: But when, by the iniquity of the times, they are brought to that extremity, that they must either quit their virtue or their fortune, they owe themselves so much, as to retire to the private exercise of their honour;--to be great within, and by the constancy of their resolutions, to teach the inferior world how they ought to judge of such principles, which are asserted with so generous and so unconstrained a trial.
But this voluntary neglect of honours has been of rare example in the world[3]: Few men have frowned first upon fortune, and precipitated themselves from the top of her wheel, before they felt at least the declination of it. We read not of many emperors like Dioclesian and Charles the Fifth, who have preferred a garden and a cloister before a crowd of followers, and the troublesome glory of an active life, which robs the possessor of his rest and quiet, to secure the safety and happiness of others. Seneca, with the help of his philosophy, could never attain to that pitch of virtue: He only endeavoured to prevent his fall by descending first, and offered to resign that wealth which he knew he could no longer hold; he would only have made a present to his master of what he foresaw would become his prey; he strove to avoid the jealousy of a tyrant,--you dismissed yourself from the attendance and privacy of a gracious king. Our age has afforded us many examples of a contrary nature; but your lordship is the only one of this. It is easy to discover in all governments, those who wait so close on fortune, that they are never to be shaken off at any turn: Such who seem to have taken up a resolution of being great; to continue their stations on the theatre of business; to change with the scene, and shift the vizard for another part--these men condemn in their discourses that virtue which they dare not practise: But the sober part of this present age, and impartial posterity, will do right, both to your lordship and to them: And, when they read on what accounts, and with how much magnanimity, you quitted those honours, to which the highest ambition of an English subject could aspire, will apply to you, with much more reason, what the historian said of a Roman emperor, "_Multi diutius imperium tenuerunt; nemo fortius reliquit._"
To this retirement of your lordship, I wish I could bring a better entertainment than this play; which, though it succeeded on the stage, will scarcely bear a serious perusal; it being contrived and written in a month, the subject barren, the persons low, and the writing not heightened with many laboured scenes. The consideration of these defects ought to have prescribed more modesty to the author, than to have presented it to that person in the world for whom he has the greatest honour, and of whose patronage the best of his endeavours had been unworthy: But I had not satisfied myself in staying longer, and could never have paid the debt with a much better play. As it is, the meanness of it will shew; at least, that I pretend not by it to make any manner of return for your favours; and that I only give you a new occasion of exercising your goodness to me, in pardoning the failings and imperfections of,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship's?Most humble, most obliged,?Most obedient servant,?JOHN DRYDEN.
Footnotes:?1. Sir Thomas Clifford, just then created Lord Clifford of Chudleigh,
and appointed Lord High Treasurer, was one of the six ministers, the initials of whose names furnished the word Cabal, by which their junto was distinguished. He was the most virtuous and honest of the junto, but a Catholic; and, what was then synonymous, a warm advocate for arbitrary power. He is said to have won his promotion by advising the desperate measure of shutting the Exchequer in 1671, the hint of which he is said to have stolen from Shaftesbury. This piece may have been undertaken by his command; for, even at the very time of the triple alliance, he is reported to have said, "For all this, we must have another Dutch war." Upon the defection of Lord Shaftesbury from the court party, and the passing of the test act, Lord Clifford resigned his office, retired to the country, and died in September 1673, shortly after receiving this dedication.
2. In this case, Dryden's praise, which did not always occur, survived
the temporary occasion. Even in a little satirical effusion, he tells us,
Clifford was fierce and brave.
Clifford had been comptroller and treasurer of the household,