and asking me when I made them, I told him two or three Years fince; he was pleased to fay, that having never feen them before, He was afraid I had written them fince my Return into England, and though he liked them well, he would advife me to write no more; alledging, that when Men are young, and have little else to do, they might vent the Over-flowings of their Fancy that way; but when they were thought fit for more ferious Employments, if they ftill perfifted in that Course, it would look, as if they minded not the way to any better. Whereupon 1 ftood corrected as long as I had the Honour to wait upon him, and at his Departure from Hampton-Court, he was pleafed to command me to stay privately at London, to fend to him and receive from him all his Letters from and to all his Correfpondents at home and abroad, and I was furnith'd with nine feveral Cyphers, in order to it: Which Trust I performed with great Safety to the Perfons with whom we correfponded; but about nine Months after being discovered by by their Knowledge of Mr. Cowley's Hand, I happily escaped both for my felf, and those that held Correfpondence with me; that Time was too hot and bufie for fuch idle Speculations, but after I had the good Fortune to wait upon your Majefty in Holland and France, you were pleased fometimes to give me Arguments to divert and put off the evil hours of our Banishment, which now and then fell not fhort of your Majesty's Expectation. After, when your Majefty, departing from St. Germains to Jersey, was pleafed freely (without my asking) to confer upon me that 'Place wherein I have now the Honour to ferve you, I then gave over Poetical Lines, and made it my business to draw fuch others as might be more serviceable to your Majesty, and I hope more lafting. Since that time I never difobeyed my old Mafter's Commands till this Summer at the Wells, my Retirement there tempting me to divert those melancholy Thoughts, which the new Apparitions of Foreign Invafion, and domeftick Difcontent gave us: But these Clouds being now happily blown over, and our Sun clearly fhining out again, I have recovered the Relapfe, it being fufpected that it would have proved the Epidemical Difease of Age, which is apt to fall back into the Follies in Youth; yet Socrates, Ariftotle, and Cato did the fame; and Scaliger faith, that Fragment of Ariftotle, was beyond any thing that Pindar or Homer ever wrote. I will not call this a Dedication, for thofe Epiftles are commonly greater Abfurdities than any that come after; for what Author can reasonably believe, that fixing the great Name of fome eminent Patron in the Forehead of his Book can charm away Cenfure, and that the first Leaf fhould be a Curtain to draw over and hide all the Deformities that ftand behind it? neither have I any need of fuch Shifts, for most of the Parts of this Body have already had Your Majesty's View, and having past the Teft of fo clear and sharp-fighted a Judgment, which has as good a Title to give Law in Matters of this Nature as in any other, they who fhall prefume to diffent from your Majesty, will do more wrong to their own Judgment, than than their Judgment can do to me: And for those latter Parts which have not yet recei ved Your Majefty's favourable Afpect, if they who have feen them do not flatter me, (for I dare not truft my own Judgment) they will make it appear, that it is not with me as with most of Mankind, who never forfake their darling Vices, till their Vices forfake them and that this Divorce was not Frigiditatis caufa, but an Act of Choice, and not of Neceffity. Therefore, Sir, I fhall only call it an humble Petition, that Your Majefty will please to pardon this new Amour to my old Mistress, and my Difobedience to his Commands, to whofe Memory I look up with great Reverence and Devotion, and making a serious Reflection upon that wife Advice, it carries much greater weight with it now, than when it was given; for when Age and Experience has fo ripen'd Man's Discretion as to make it fit for use, either in private or publick Affairs, nothing blasts and corrupts the Fruit of it fo much as the empty, airy Reputation of being Nimis Poeta, and therefore I fhall take my Leave of the |