Thus, my lord, I have, as briefly as I could, given your lordship,
and by you the world, a rude draught of what I have been long
labouring in my imagination, and what I had intended to have put in
practice (though far unable for the attempt of such a poem), and to
have left the stage, to which my genius never much inclined me, for
a work which would have taken up my life in the performance of it.
This, too, I had intended chiefly for the honour of my native
country, to which a poet is particularly obliged. Of two subjects,
both relating to it, I was doubtful--whether I should choose that of
King Arthur conquering the Saxons (which, being farther distant in
time, gives the greater scope to my invention), or that of Edward
the Black Prince in subduing Spain and restoring it to the lawful
prince, though a great tyrant, Don Pedro the Cruel--which for the
compass of time, including only the expedition of one year; for the
greatness of the action, and its answerable event; for the
magnanimity of the English hero, opposed to the ingratitude of the
person whom he restored; and for the many beautiful episodes which I
had interwoven with the principal design, together with the
characters of the chiefest English persons (wherein, after Virgil
and Spenser, I would have taken occasion to represent my living
friends and patrons of the noblest families, and also shadowed the
events of future ages in the succession of our imperial line)--with
these helps, and those of the machines which I have mentioned, I
might perhaps have done as well as some of my predecessors, or at
least chalked out a way for others to amend my errors in a like
design; but being encouraged only with fair words by King Charles
the Second, my little salary ill paid, and no prospect of a future
subsistence, I was then discouraged in the beginning of my attempt;
and now age has overtaken me, and want (a more insufferable evil)
through the change of the times has wholly disenabled me; though I
must ever acknowledge, to the honour of your lordship, and the
eternal memory of your charity, that since this Revolution, wherein
I have patiently suffered the ruin of my small fortune, and the loss
of that poor subsistence which I had from two kings, whom I had
served more faithfully than profitably to myself--then your lordship
was pleased, out of no other motive but your own nobleness, without
any desert of mine, or the least solicitation from me, to make me a
most bountiful present, which at that time, when I was most in want
of it, came most seasonably and unexpectedly to my relief.
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