in you, which nothing in man (who seigneurises over all other creatures, and who can pretend to nothing stronger then courage and reason) can ever equal. It is to pleasure you that wit is studied, and were it not that ye might be pleased, certainly providence had placed wit beyond the reach of our studies: it is to sooth your humor that men school themselves in patience; and by your miraculous voice, the storms of their passions are calmed; from your beauty, cowards borrow courage, and niggards liberality; so that all these scattered colonies of vertues, which are squandred amongst men, are all originated from your example. But as it was duty, so it is prudence in me to beg your patronage; for how can the body of this Book be abissed, and sink in the gulf of scorn, if its head be handed up by such admired beauties; neither think I, that malice can be so malicious, as to along a thurst at the author, who ensconces himself behinde such sacred persons; lest the blow destinated for him should wound them who targets him. I have chosen so many patronesses, to evidence that there is none of your never enough admired sex, but may lay claime to the patronage of all that drops from my pen; as also, fearing that among such a number, I should scarce finde one who would be so excessively hospitall, as to lodge in her Cabinet or Chamber such an unacknowledged Orphelin. The disappointment of my fears in this, is rather the wish, then the expectation of,
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1
Parthenissa is reproduced, with permission, from the copy in the Henry E. Huntington Library, the other works from the copies in the British Museum.
