To Mrs. Ellen Gwyn.

Madam,

It is no wonder that hitherto I followed not the good example of the believing poets, since less faith and zeal than you alone can inspire had wanted power to have reduced me to the true worship. Your permission, Madam, has enlightened me and I with shame look back on my past ignorance, which suffered me not to pay an adoration long since, where there was so very much due, yet even now, though secure in my opinion, I make this sacrifice with infinite fear and trembling, well knowing that so excellent and perfect a creature as yourself differs only from the divine powers in this. The offerings made to you ought to be worthy of you, whilst they accept the will alone. And how, Madam, would your altars be loaded, if like Heaven you gave permission to all that had a will and desire to approach them, who now at distance can only wish and admire, which all mankind agree to do, as if, Madam, you alone had the patent from heaven to engross all hearts? And even those distant slaves, whom you conquer with your fame, pay an equal tribute to those that have the blessing of being wounded by your eyes and boast the happiness of beholding you daily. Insomuch that succeeding ages who shall with joy survey your history shall envy us who lived in this and saw those charming wonders which they can only read of and whom we ought in charity to pity, since all the pictures pens or pencils can draw will give them but a faint idea of what we have the honour to see in such absolute perfection; they can only guess she was infinitely fair, witty and deserving, but to what vast degrees in all, they can only judge who lived to gaze and listen. For besides, Madam, all the charms and attractions and powers of your sex, you have beauties peculiar to yourself, an eternal sweetness, youth and air, which never dwelt in any face but yours, of which not one inimitable grace could be ever borrowed or assumed, though with never so much industry, to adorn another. They cannot steal a look or smile from you to enhance their own beauties' price, but all the world will know it yours, so natural and so fitted are all your charms and excellencies to one another, so entirely designed and created to make up in you alone the most perfect lovely thing in the world. You never appear but you glad the hearts of all that have the happy fortune to see you, as if you were made on purpose to put the whole world into good humour, whenever you look abroad and when you speak, men crowd to listen with that awful reverence as to holy oracles or divine prophesies and bear away the precious words to tell at home to all the attentive family, the graceful things you uttered and cry "but, oh, she spoke with such an air, so gay, that half the beauty’s lost in the repetition". It is this that ought to make your sex vain enough to despise the malicious world that will allow a woman no wit and bless ourselves for living in an age that can produce so wondrous an argument as your undeniable self to show me those boasting talkers who are judges of nothing but faults.

But how much in vain, Madam, I endeavour to tell you the sense of all mankind with mine, since to the utmost limits of the universe your mighty conquests are made known. And who can doubt the power of that illustrious beauty, the charms of that tongue and the greatness of that mind who has subdued the most powerful and glorious monarch of the world? And so well you bear the honours you were born for, with a greatness so unaffected, an affability so easy, a humour so soft, so far from pride or vanity, that the most envious and most disaffected can find no cause or reason to wish you less, nor can Heaven give you more, who has expressed a particular care of you every way and above all in bestowing on the world and you, two noble branches who have all the greatness and sweetness of their royal and beautiful stock, and who give us too a hopeful prospect of what their future braveries will perform, when they shall shoot up and spread themselves to that degree that all the lesser world may find repose beneath their shades, and whom you have permitted to wear those glorious titles which you yourself generously neglected, well knowing with the noble poet: it is better far to merit titles than to wear them.

Can you then blame my ambition, Madam, that lays this at your feet and begs a sanctuary where all pay so great a veneration? It was dedicated yours before it had a being and over-busy to render it worthy of the honour, made it less grateful. And poetry like lovers often fares the worse by taking too much pains to please. But under so gracious an influence my tender laurels may thrive, till they become fit wreaths to offer to the rays that improve their growth, which, Madam, I humbly implore, you still permit her ever to do, who is,

Madam,

Your most humble and most obedient servant,

A. Behn.