To the right honourable, the Lady Katherine Herbert.

Madam,

Never till this time could I suspect that it was an easier thing for me to be the author of a play than to write this dedication to my mind, but now I confess, so awful is my patroness and so humble and zealous my pretensions in this kind that unless I could bring an offering that might far surpass whatever has went before it, I should think it too mean for your acceptance. And for the reason that having been allowed and passed the suffrages of the most curious critics in the theatre, I should be the more unfortunate to be at last shipwrecked in the heaven by an opinion of my dedication, whereof some of the leading wits in these times have been censured. How hard is it then for a young writer to please this delicate age, wherein every year the wits study the fashion of language to refine and alter it, as they do their clothes! And true it is that it is another thing to write the scene and speeches of heroes that are dead and make them speak as we please, governed by our fancy, than it is to reach the minds of those illustrious persons that poetry is forced to choose to be above its judges, the patrons of wit. For in our plays, you read your own characters and they are at best but what we have gathered from you, who daily act among yourselves in conversation, in a lighter orb, what none of the greatest and indeed barbarous courts could ever attain to. And good poets are at the best but like bad painters, that only show you the shadows of yourselves, grossly daubed, without imitating the least spark of the bright original. With what reverence and caution then ought I to approach you, Madam, whose nobility and virtue are in the sanctuary of so divine a shape that it is an excuse for all that see you to give their souls no liberty to speak or think profanely of you, but justly to be confined to admiration and the whole world will say as well as I, that all that it has heard of angels are to be seen in you and like them too, you are adorned with so heavenly a spring of youth as if you were to blossom to eternity, or as if you were indeed the secret goddess of divine nature disclosed, that every year makes vegetables grow and all the living receive a hidden and diffusive pleasure from her influence. You are the greatest blessing the Almighty has designed to that incomparable person your father as a reward for his justice and loyalty in that most eminent place, wherein heaven and the wisest prince has set him as the richest and most adorning jewel of his crown and a continual and faithful steward to this nation and no doubt, for its preservation and welfare, all England as well as myself does pray that he may long live the worthy and endeared servant of such a grateful and royal master. To you, Madam, therefore, before I conclude, I am to beg a protection for this worthless poem, the product of some melancholy hours and not of my business. And if perhaps I have in this my first undertaking, like a raw and unpractised magician in his art, raised to myself the envy of some malicious and troublesome spirits, which I have not the skill nor courage to lay, I have therefore wisely invoked you for my deity. For neither critics nor devils, I am sure, can presume to hurt me in that circle which your name has guarded and made sacred. Let the modesty of the style make an atonement for the meanness of the language and if your thoroughly discerning judgement and beauteous eyes, like the sun, discover motes and spots in what you read, you have clemency and goodness in abundance to forgive them and impute them to the in-artificial dress of a virgin muse; in my next she may appear more curious. I bring in my behalf too the conqueror of the world to lay before your feet, the greatest man that ever was, who, were he living, would become a rival to his dear Ephestion and behold in your person as well the sweet, serene and obliging innocence of Parisatis as the more lofty and imperial graces of his Statira. This great man, Madam, the author of the famous Cassandra, thought never to be equalled but in the person of the most exquisite of lovers, him therefore he has raised in the character of Oroondate to be a rival to the mighty Alexander in the romance and here I have brought him to be so in you and the rather because I prefer him to the likeness of the young, hopeful and gallant partner of yourself, which I pray he may never cease to be, but early anticipate the extraordinary expectations of mankind and crown you with greater happiness than fame and fancy have yet created in the minds of the most heroic lovers. This and whatever increases your felicity shall be the perpetual wishes of,

Madam,

Your most humble and obedient servant,

John Banks.