To Her Grace, the duchess of Portsmouth.

Madam,

There is nothing more difficult, even to the valiant or the witty than making approaches to the fair. Nay I am confident the most renowned conqueror, even Alexander himself if he now lived, would rather stand exposed alone to the javelins of an enraged multitude than make his address to a beauty so powerfully armed as your Grace. The most lofty wit that ever constant success and popular applause made confident would tremble to speak before you: judge then how unfit I am, blasted in my hopes and pressed in my growth by a most severe if not unjust fortune. It is greatly done to raise the depressed, which makes me apply myself to your Grace who, as you are the brightest, are likewise the noblest object in the world; you enliven, like the sun, with universal influence, which induces me to hope that a beam from your Grace may reach,

The humblest of your servants,

Nat. Lee.