To the duchess of Albemarle.

Madam,

When I consider what favourable reception my first humble supplications in this kind have had from your Grace's hand, I cannot think my duty fully paid, nor my adoration sufficiently expressed, till I dedicate my whole life and labours to your Grace. It is not one act of devotion that can make a zealot. And therefore, as I made a present then, I pay you a tribute now. And though this poem has but little merit of its own, yet encouraged by the honours it has received, like pages to princes, it owes its boldness to its education. And since your Grace gave it leave to be a troublesome guest at New Hall, it liked the entertainment so well that it resolves to live and die there. And it is an ambition in some respect to be justified, for poetry should always make up part of the trains of princes, especially theirs whose excellencies are so divine a subject for it. Under that shelter I approach your Grace, when I must own, I have played the plagiary in making the duchess of Albemarle the pattern for my Roxolana, only with this difference that I have copied below the life. Your Grace has all her virtue, without the allay of her vanity and this advantage above her that your Grace possesses those charms which story never attributed to Roxolana. Her beauty could subdue, but not secure her Soliman. But your Grace's victories are more complete. For if our English chronicle (spite of the fashionable liberty of a licentious age) would character the perfect happiness of a princely pair, it must describe the influence of the duchess of Albemarle over the unalterable affections of her lord. And as in duty to such eminent virtues and such infinite perfections, even the most ill-natured age unanimously speaks of your Grace with veneration. And to secure that fame your virtues have so justly acquired, your Grace is as cautious in the preservation of it, but so impregnable are your sacred principles of honour, that your Grace's care in that is but like his who raises bulwarks to defend that town which of itself before was inaccessible. Nor can I more reasonably impute the duke of Albemarle’s and your Grace's more frequent residence at New Hall to any other than a true English nobleness as knowing that your greatness can better fill a court than make a part of one. I could be very prolix on so excellent a team, for it is easy to write where all mankind dictates. And I must confess it is the highest bliss of an author to have those patrons whose merits are above flattery, where the titles of great and good may be given without a blush. This made Horace speak so largely in the commendations of his Maecenas and Juvenal say so so little in the praise of Trajan. For my part I account it my chief happiness to have been a witness of your Grace’s greatness and my highest contemplation to be an admirer of it. The humblest of which admirers, is

Madam,

Your Grace’s most obliged, most devoted and most humble servant,

Elkanah Settle.