To madam Ellen Gwyn.

Madam,

It is not, because you were pleased to be very kind to this play, when it was acted; for I know not whether you ever honoured it with your presence. Nor is it to return you a troublesome acknowledgment for favours; for I am sure you do not know me. Nor the hope of obliging you to my future advantage; for the utmost return I expect is your pardon; none of these has made me guilty of this presumption. But since a play in print, without an epistle dedicatory, is now like a modish gallant without a mistress, or a papist without a tutelar saint, I resolved to obey custom in making a dedication and my own free inclination in the choice of your excellent self, at whose feet I humbly lay this; wherein, though my rash boldness may be censured, I’m sure my prudence will be applauded. For if this censorious age will submit to the most perfect beauty, or the greatest goodness in the world, under your protection it will be safe. Nature almost overcome by art, has in yourself rallied all her scattered forces and on your charming brow, sits smiling at the slavish toils which yours and her envious foes endure, striving in vain with the fading weak supplies of art, to rival your beauties, which are ever the same and always incomparable. Notwithstanding this great truth is celebrated by all that know you. Y ou still are mistress of so much obliging affability, so free from sullen pride and affected stateliness, the usual attendants of extraordinary felicity, not contented to be safe in the barren praise of doing no ill, but so readily and so frequently doing good, as if it were not your nature, but your business. That, next to your beauty, these virtues are the greatest miracle of the age. If I am the first that has taken the boldness to tell you this, in print, it is because I am more ambitious than all others, to be known by the title of,

Madam,

Your admirer and humblest servant,

T. D.