have made fome few Mistakes, 'tis only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted Opportunity to correct them; the whole Poem being firft written, and now feat you from a place where I have not fo much as the Converfe of any Seaman. Yet though the trouble I had in Writing it was great, it was more than recompens'd by the Pleafare; I found my felf fo warm in celebrating the Praifes of Military Men, two fuch especially as the Prince and General, that it is no wonder if they infpir'd me with Thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well fatisfied, that as they are incomparably the beft Subject I ever bad, excepting only the Royal Family; fo alfo, that this I have written of them, is much better than what I have perform'd on any other. I have been forc'd to help out other Arguments; at this has been boun- tiful to me, they have been and barren of Praife, and I have exalted them, de them fruitful: reddit juftiffima But here - Omnia fpont. tellus. I have had a large, a fair, and a pleafans Field fo fertile, that without my cultivating, it has given me two Harvests in a Summer, and in both oppreffed the Reaper. All other greatness in Subjects is only counterfeit, it will not endure the teft of Dan- ger; the greatnefs of Arms is only real: Other great- nefs burdens a Nation with its weight, this fupports it with its ftrength. And as it is the Happiness of the Age, fo it is the peculiar Goodness of the best of Kings, that we may praise his Subjects without offend- ing him: Doubtlefs it proceeds from a juft Confidence of his own Virtue, which the luflre of no other can be fo great as to darken in him; for the Good or the Valiant are never fafely praised under a bad or a de- generate Prince. But to return from this Digreffion
to a farther account of my l'oem; I must crave leaveB 4
