MY LORD,
Since I cannot promise you much of poetry in my play, it is but
reasonable that I should secure you from any part of it in my
dedication. And indeed I cannot better distinguish the exactness of
your taste from that of other men, than by the plainness and sincerity
of my address. I must keep my hyperboles in reserve for men of other
understandings. An hungry appetite after praise, and a strong
digestion of it, will bear the grossness of that diet; but one of so
critical a judgment as your lordship, who can set the bounds of just
and proper in every subject, would give me small encouragement for so
bold an undertaking. I more than suspect, my lord, that you would not
do common justice to yourself; and, therefore, were I to give that
character of you, which I think you truly merit, I would make my
appeal from your lordship to the reader, and would justify myself from
flattery by the public voice, whatever protestation you might enter to
the contrary. But I find I am to take other measures with your
lordship; I am to stand upon my guard with you, and to approach you as
warily as Horace did Augustus:
_Cui male si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus.
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