But though a character so high and undeserved
has not raised in me the presumption to offer such a trifle to his
most serious view, yet I will own the vanity to say, that after this
glory which it has received from a sovereign prince, I could not send
it to seek protection from any subject. Be this poem, then, sacred to
him, without the tedious form of a dedication, and without presuming
to interrupt those hours which he is daily giving to the peace and
settlement of his people.
For what else concerns this play, I would tell the reader, that it is
regular, according to the strictest of dramatic laws; but that it is
a commendation which many of our poets now despise, and a beauty which
our common audiences do not easily discern. Neither indeed do I value
myself upon it; because, with all that symmetry of parts, it may want
an air and spirit (which consists in the writing) to set it off. 'Tis
a question variously disputed, whether an author may be allowed as a
competent judge of his own works. As to the fabric and contrivance
of them, certainly he may; for that is properly the employment of
the judgment; which, as a master-builder, he may determine, and that
without deception, whether the work be according to the exactness of
the model; still granting him to have a perfect idea of that pattern
by which he works, and that he keeps himself always constant to the
discourse of his judgment, without admitting self-love, which is
the false surveyor of his fancy, to intermeddle in it.
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