To the most excellent and most illustrious princess Anne, duchess of Monmouth, countess of Buccleuch, etc.

May it please your Grace,

The favour which heroic plays have lately found upon our theatres has been wholly derived to them, from the countenance and approbation they have received at court. The most eminent persons for wit and honour in the royal circle having so far owned them, that they have judged no way so fit as verse to entertain a noble audience, or to express a noble passion. And amongst the rest which have been written in this kind, they have been so indulgent to this poem, as to allow it no inconsiderable place. Since, therefore, to the court I owe its fortune on the stage, so, being now more publicly exposed in print, I humbly recommend it to your Grace’s protection, who by all knowing persons are esteemed a principal ornament of the court. But though the rank which you hold in the royal family, might direct the eyes of a poet to you, yet your beauty and goodness detain and fix them. High objects, it is true, attract the sight. But it looks up with pain on Craggy Rocks and Barren Mountains and continues not intent on any object, which is wanting in shades and greens to entertain it. Beauty, in courts, is so necessary to the young, that those who are without it, seem to be there no other purpose then to wait upon the triumphs of the fair. To attend their motions in obscurity, as the moon and stars do the sun by day, or at best to be the refuge of those hearts which others have despised and, by the unworthiness of both, to give and take a miserable comfort. But as needful as beauty is, virtue and honour are yet more. The reign of it without their support is unsafe and short like that of tyrants. Every sun which looks on beauty wastes it. And, when once it is decaying, the repairs of art are of as short continuance, as the after spring, when the sun is going farther off. This, madam, is its ordinary fate, but yours which is accompanied by virtue, is not subject to that common destiny. Your Grace has not only a long time of youth to flourish in, but you have likewise found the way by an untainted preservation of your honour, to make that perishable good more lasting. And if beauty like wines could be preserved, by being mixed and embodied with others of their own natures, then your graces would be immortal, since no part of Europe can afford a parallel to your noble lord, in masculine beauty and in goodliness of shape. To receive the blessings and prayers of mankind, you need only be seen together. We are ready to conclude that you are a pair of angels sent below to make virtue amiable in your persons, or to sit to poets when they would pleasantly instruct the age, by drawing goodness in the most perfect and alluring shape of nature. But though beauty be the theme, on which poets love to dwell, I must be forced to quit it as a private praise, since you have deserved those which are more public. For goodness and humanity, which shine in you, are virtues which concern mankind and by a certain kind of interest all people agree in their commendation, because the profit of them may extend to many.

It is so much your inclination to do good that you stay not to be asked, which is an approach so nigh the deity, that human nature is not capable of a nearer. It is my happiness that I can testify this virtue of your graces by my own experience, since I have so great an aversion from soliciting court favours, that I am ready to look on those as very bold, who dare grow rich there without desert. But I beg your graces pardon for assuming this virtue of modesty to myself, which the sequel of this discourse will no way justify. For in this address, I have already quitted the character of a modest man, by presenting you this poem as an acknowledgment, which stands in need of your protection. And which ought no more to be esteemed a present, then it is accounted bounty in the poor, when they bestow a child on some wealthy friend, who will better breed it up. Off-springs of this nature are like to be so numerous with me, that I must be forced to send some of them abroad. Only this is like to be more fortunate than his brothers, because I have landed him on a hospitable shore. Under your patronage Montezuma hopes he is more safe than in his native Indies. And therefore, comes to throw himself at your Grace’s feet, paying that homage to your beauty, which he refused to the violence of his conquerors. He begs only that when he shall relate his sufferings, you will consider him as an Indian prince and not expect any other eloquence from his simplicity, then what his griefs have furnished him withal. His story is, perhaps the greatest, which was ever represented in a poem of this nature (the action of it including the discovery and conquest of a new world). In it I have neither wholly followed the truth of the history, nor altogether left it. But have taken all the liberty of a poet, to add, alter, or diminish, as I thought might best conduce to the beautifying of my work. It being not the business of a poet to represent truth, but probability. But I am not to make the justification of this poem, which I wholly leave to your Grace’s mercy. It is an irregular piece if compared with many of Corneille’s and, if I may make a judgement of it, written with more flame than art. In which it represents the mind and intentions of the author, who is with much more zeal and integrity, then design and artifice,

Madam,

Your Grace’s most obedient and most obliged servant,

John Dryden.

October the 12th 1667.