My lord,

this poem was the last piece of service which I had the honour to do for my gracious master king Charles the second; and though he lived not to see the performance of it on the stage, yet the Prologue to it, which was the opera of Albion and Albanius, was often practised before him at Whitehall, and encouraged by his royal approbation. It was, indeed, a time which was proper for triumph, when he had overcome all those difficulties which for some years had perplexed his peaceful reign: but when he had just restored his people to their senses, and made the latter end of his government of a piece with the happy beginning of it, he was on the sudden snatched away from the blessings and acclamations of his subjects, who arrived so late to the knowledge of him that they had but just time enough to desire himlonger before they were to part with himfor ever. Peace be with the ashes of so good a king! Let his human frailties be forgotten, and his clemency and moderation (the inherent virtues of his family) be remembered with a grateful veneration by three kingdoms, through which he spread the blessings of them: and as your lordship held a principal place in his esteem, and perhaps the first in his affection, during his latter troubles, the success which accompanied those prudent counsels cannot but reflect an honour on those few who managed them, and wrought out by their faithfulness and diligence the public safety. I might dilate on the difficulties which attended that undertaking, - the temper of the people, the power, arts and interest of the contrary party; but those are all of them invidious topics; they are too green in our remembrance; and he who touches on them, incedit per ignes suppositos cineri doloso. But without reproaching one side to praise another, I may justly recommend to both those wholesome counsels, which, wisely administered and as well executed, were themeans of preventing a civil war and of extinguishing a growing fire which was just ready to have broken forth among us. So many wives who have yet their husbands in their arms, so many parents who have not the number of their children lessened, so many villages, towns and cities whose inhabitants are not decreased, their property violated, or their wealth diminished, are yet owing to the sober conduct and happy results of your advice. If a true account may be expected by future ages from the present, your lordship will be delivered over to posterity in a fairer character than I have given, and be read, not in the preface of a play (whose author is not vain enough to promise immortality to others or to hope it for himself), but in many pages of a chronicle filled with praises of your administration. For if writers be just to the memory of king Charles the second, they cannot deny him to have been an exact knower of mankind, and a perfect distinguisher of their talents. It is true his necessities often forced him to vary his counsellors and counsels, and sometimes to employ such persons in themanagement of his affairs who were rather fit for his present purpose than satisfactory to his judgement; but where it was choice in him, not compulsion, he was master of too much good sense to delight in heavy conversation, and whatever his favourites of state might be, yet those of his affection were men of wit. He was easy with these, and complied only with the former. But in the latter part of his life, which certainly required to be most cautiously managed, his secret thoughts were communicated but to few; and those selected of that sort who were amici omnium horarum, able to advise him in a serious consult where his honour and safety were concerned, and afterwards capable of entertaining him with pleasant discourse as well as profitable. In this maturest part of his age, when he had been long seasoned with difficulties and dangers and was grown to a niceness in his choice, as being satisfied how few could be trusted, and of those who could be trusted how few could serve him, he confined himself to a small number of bosom friends, amongst whom the world is much mistaken if your lordship was not first.

If the rewards which you received for those services were only honours, it rather showed the necessities of the times than any want of kindness in your royal master; and as the splendour of your fortune stood not in need of being supported by the crown, so likewise in being satisfied without other recompense you showed yourself to be above amercenary interest, and strengthened that power which bestowed those titles on you, which, truly speaking, were marks of acknowledgement more than favour.

But as a skilful pilot will not be tempted out to sea in suspected weather, so have you wisely chosen to withdraw yourself from public business when the face of heaven grew troubled and the frequent shifting of the winds fore-showed a storm. There are times and seasons when the best patriots are willing to withdraw their hands from the Commonwealth, as Phocion in his latter days was observed to decline the management of affairs; or as Cicero (to draw the similitude more home) left the pulpit for Tusculum, and the praise of oratory for the sweet enjoyments of a private life, and, in the happiness of those retirements, has more obliged posterity by his moral precepts than he did the republic in quelling the conspiracy of Catiline. What prudent man would not rather follow the example of his retreat, than stay, like Cato, with a stubborn unseasonable virtue to oppose the torrent of the people, and at last be driven from the market-place by a riot of a multitude incapable of counsel and deaf to eloquence? There is, likewise, a portion of our lives which every wise man may justly reserve to his own peculiar use, and that without defrauding his native country. A Roman soldier was allowed to plead the merit of his services for his dismission at such an age; and there was but one exception to that rule, which was an invasion from the Gauls. How far that may work with your lordship I am not certain, but I hope it is not coming to the trial.

In the mean time, while the nation is secured from foreign attempts by so powerful a fleet, and we enjoy not only the happiness but even the ornaments of peace in the divertisement of the town, I humbly offer you this trifle, which, if it succeed upon the stage, is like to be the chiefest entertainment of our ladies and gentlemen this summer. When I wrote it, seven years ago, I employed some reading about it, to inform myself out of Beda, Bochartus and other authors, concerning the rites and customs of the heathen Saxons, as I also used the little skill I have in poetry to adorn it. But not to offend the present times nor a government which has hitherto protected me, I have been obliged so much to alter the first design, and take away so many beauties from the writing, that it is now no more what it was formerly, than the present ship of the royal sovereign, after so often taking down and altering, is the vessel it was at the first building. There is nothing better than what I intended but the musick, which has since arrived to a greater perfection in England than ever formerly, especially passing through the artful hands of mr. Purcel, who has composed it with so great a genius that he has nothing to fear but an ignorant, ill-judging audience. But the numbers of poetry and vocal musick are sometimes so contrary, that in many places I have been obliged to cramp my verses, and make them rugged to the reader that they may be harmonious to the hearer, of which I have no reason to repent me, because these sorts of entertainments are principally designed for the ear and eye, and therefore, in reason, my art on this occasion ought to be subservient to his; and besides, I flatter myself with an imagination, that a judicious audience will easily distinguish betwixt the songs wherein I have complied with him, and those in which I have followed the rules of poetry in the sound and cadence of the words. Notwithstanding all these disadvantages, there is somewhat still remaining of the first spirit with which I wrote it; and though I can only speak by guess of what pleased my first and best patroness, the duchess of Monmouth, in the reading, yet I will venture my opinion, by the knowledge I have long had of her grace's excellent judgement and true taste of poetry, that the parts of the airy and earthy spirits, and that fairy kind of writing which depends only upon the force of imagination, where the grounds of her liking the poem and afterwards of her recommending it to the queen. I have likewise had the satisfaction to hear that her majesty has graciously been pleased to peruse the manuscript of this opera, and given it her royal approbation. Poets, who subsist not but on the favour of sovereign princes and of great persons, may have leave to be a little vain, and boast of their patronage who encourage the genius that animates them. And therefore I will again presume to guess, that her majesty was not displeased to find in this poem the praises of her native country, and the heroic actions of so famous a predecessor in the government of Great Britain as King Arthur.

All this, my lord, I must confess, looks with a kind of insinuation that I present you with somewhat not unworthy your protection; but I may easily mistake the favour of her majesty for her judgement: I think I cannot be deceived in thus addressing to your lordship, whom I have had the honour to know, at that distance which becomes me, for so many years. It is true that formerly I have shadowed some part of your virtues under another name; but the character, though short and imperfect, was so true, that it broke through the fable and was discovered by its native light. What I pretend by this dedication is, an honour which I do myself to posterity, by acquainting them that I have been conversant with the first persons of the age in which I lived, and thereby perpetuatemy prose whenmy verses may possibly be forgotten or obscured by the fame of future poets; which ambition, amongst my other faults and imperfections, be pleased to pardon in,