wonder he excells all other Men They but Nine Muses had and he has Ten. A Lady whose Immortal Pen transferrs To our Sex Shame and Envy Fame to hers Whose Genius traces Wit through all her wayes In abstruse Notions Poems and in Playes Then why should we the mouldy Records keep Of Plautus or disturb Ben Johnson's Sleep The Silent Woman Famous heretofore Has been but now the VVriting Lady more On the Dutchess of New-Castle her Grace MADAM WHilst others study Books I study you And can b'Experience this affirm for true Of all your Sex you have the greatest worth As ever yet these later times brought forth And I have Studied many and some such As former times could hardly better much Your Soul so Spiritual it doth appear Fram'd for some Angel of a higher Sphere However 't was infus'd I know not how Into a mortal Body here below Aspiring restlesly like Fire and Flame To mount again to th'Sphere from whenc it came So nobly active as it doth by Truth As by the World the Macedoniau Youth As soon as y 'ave o'recome and Conquer'd one You grieve there are not more to overcome There being nothing so Sublime and High But you can reach in all Philosophy Nor so profound and deep again but you With ease can dive and penetrate into Your Virtues being so infinite I find When I consider but your Soul and Mind 'T were easier for me never to begin Than ever to give o're when once l 'm in Which whosoe're should go about to tell Might number all the Stars of Heav'n as well The blades of Grass upon Earth's spacious Plain Or Sands the Sea 's vast Bosome does contain But as your greatest Beauties have their moles So some small faults are still in greatest Souls And I shall tell you Madam what they be T' acquit my self o' th Crime of Plattery 'T is an Ambition above mortal state And Mind with Glory never satiate Without which Glory and Ambition No noble Action yet was ever done So avidious and so Covetous of Fame As only for Eternizing their Name They as the Phoenix life to 's young do's give Would be content to die that that might live But now I 'll tell what my opinion is Of Fame and pardon if I Judge amiss Fame's but a shadow of great action And but the Eccho of 't when we are gone Than whose Trumpet no Musick is more sweet Nor none 's alive more pleas'd with hearing it But I do'nt know what pleasure I should have When I am dead with Musick at my Grave An Elegy upon the death of the Incomparable Princess Margaret Dutchess of New-Castle HEnceforth be Dumb ye Oracles of Wit Ye humbly must to Fate submit How soon must ye decline How low must fall Since She is gone who did Inspire ye all Her Books are the best Patterns for the Pen Her Person was the best of Subjects too In Wit and Sense She did excel all Men And all her Sex in Virtue did outgoe Though Grief affords some Floquence Henceforth expect but little Sense For since she 's gone all we can do Will but the Pangs of Dying-writers show VVhen the bright Ruler of the Day Th' Horizon of his Presence has bereft Some feeble streaks of Light are left Yet darkness soon must come and all that light decay Our Sun 's forever set we have no hope Of this as of the other Sun's return VVe all in Darkness must forever grope And we for ever must in Tears her absence mourn Philosophers must wander in the dark Now they of Truth can find no certain mark Since She their surest Guide is gone away They cannot chuse but miserably stray All did depend on Her but She on none For her Philosophy was all her own She never did to the poor Refuge fly Of Occult Quality or Sympathy She could a Reason for each Cause present Not trusting wholly to Experiment No Principles from others she purloyn'd But wisely Practice she with Speculation joyn'd None was more good and once none was more fair She was not as most of her frail Sex are Who 'ave Fruitful Wombs but Baren Brains She left the best Remains Though we no Issue of her Body find Yet she hath left behind The Nobler Issue of her mighty Mind Learning she needed not nor yet despis'd Though from herself all Arts she knew The truly Learn'd she nobly Patroniz'd And every Artist she encourag'd too Let all her Sex fashion by her their Lives She was the best of Women best of Wives Ther Lord Sh'was warme and loving as the Spring But to all others cold as Winters Ice Her sight on all a shiv'ring awe did bring And nipt at first all vain attempts of Vice But though in Love she bore a Noble pride She to each Skilful man of Art Her Conversation freely doth impart And to all others civil was beside But we by praising thus provoke our Grief VVhich never can expect Relief Nor can the most luxurious Praise Though penn'd with Art that might deserve the Bayes Nor all which we can think afford Ease to her much lamenting Lord Whose loss does now by far outvye All he yet e're sustain'd Yet he once lost much more for Loyalty Than any Subject and much less has gain'd This noble half she left behind Who by her much lamented death must find Too great a Trial for the greatest Mind Oh what Expedient can there be Found to support his Magnanimity The best of Husbands and the noblest Peer The best of Generals best of Subjects too Whose Arts in Peace as well as War appear He knows how to advise and how to do His Prudence and his Courage might uphold The most decay'd and crippled State And rescue it from the Jawes of Fate His Body may but Mind can ne're be old Him she has left and from our sight is hurl'd And Gloriously shines in the true Blazing VVorld Thomas Shadwell An Elegy on the Death of the Incomparable Dutchess of NEW-CASTLE IF with due honour you would Solemnize The great New-Castles Funeral Obsequies Let every Science in close-mourning stand About the Hearse with Cypress in her hand Philosophy herself shall hold the Pall She 's the chief Mourner at this Funeral Philosophy which well the Poets drew With Womens Features here we find it true Nature whose Lovers in their Courtship rude Into her Privy-Chambers did intrude Out of her own Sex modestly one chose To whom her self she naked did disclose VVho all her wonders did so well explain That she the only wonder did remain Let Rhetorick the pow'rful Syren there Drest in her richest Livery appear Drest in those Robes which Tully to her gave When the Worlds Mistrels Rome he made her Slave Or the strong Reason of New-Castles Books VVeav'd with the Charming softness of her Looks But yet her weakness let her here confess Her Silence best this Sorrow do's express The Muses Her in lasting Tears shall steep The Graces mourn and Comoedy shall weep And
in these obscure corners of Academical Retirement as the other in piercing into the greatest difficulties and the most dark and obstruce Recesses of Philosophy Madam I humbly crave Pardon for my boldness and impatience that I offer so hastily to return thanks for so eminent a Favour before I have well computed the value thereof nor as yet fitly polished and adorned my Stile by a longer converse with your Ladyships most Elegant and Ingenious Writings But the cause of defects in this kind being so freely confessed your noble cand or will be pleased to accept the rude reality of those speedy acknowledgements made by C.C.C. June 9. Thrice-Excellent Madam Your Ladyships most Humble and Thankful Admirer Henry More MADAM IN you the World hath an Illustrious Example of the truth of their Opinion who hold that no Virtue is single but alwayes accompanied with some if not all of its Fellows For to omit those many other Virtues which seem to contend each with other which shall render you conspicuous to that general Charity of yours whereby you dayly oblige all mankind in supplying the poverty of their Understandings with the Spiritual Almes of Knowledge you have added an extraordinary Generosity by enriching with your choice Volumes the Libraries of some particular Persons whom you are pleased to think capable of comprehending your curious Speculations therein contained And in the number of these your Bouuty hath given me a right to account my self For which eminent Grace and Favour while I strive to shew my self Grateful I find my Faculties wholly taken up with Admiration and that Reason I should make use of to help me express my sentiments decently is dimmed with the Glories of the Person to whom I address If therefore I am not able to acquit my self of that Duty as I ought you are to reflect on the exceeding difficulty of it Justice requires you should pardon the Effects of that Transport and Astonishment of which your Excellencies are the cause and when I cannot advance the due Tribute of Thanks you ought to admit my Homage of Acknowledgements Your Wit Madam is above all Commendations your Industry above Belief your Labours in Writing above humane patience your Curiosity above Imitation your Notions above any but your own Subtlety and all above your Sex Your Collections by the improvement they receive from your fertile Brain become your own Productions and those obscure Hints delivered to you in the Discourses of others by passing through your lightsome Imagination are turned into bright and full Discoveries You solve Problems with more ease than others have proposed them and your Pen hath this particular advantage that it leaves no Darkness on the Paper besides that of the Ink. Where you treat of Arguments formerly handled by others you either give them more light or contract what they had before into a narrower and more familiar Compass and upon all occasions you either produce new things or speak old ones after a new manner so that you stagger the truth of that saying of the wise Man That nothing is new under the Sun Your Expressions for the most part are Natural yet Select at once explaining and adorning your Matter and they who read your Books with design to be informed in points of Philosophy find themselves at the same time introduced also in Rhetorique In a word while you bring Reasons for the most admirable Works of Nature you shew your self to be her greatest Miracle and your prodigious Sagacity inclines even the Envious to believe that all you need do to comprehend the most obstruse things is only to think on them This Language Madam is but the imperfect Echo of your merits nor can any thing but your modesty hinder you from owning it so to be However I most humbly beseech you to hear it as most proper to that high Honour and Veneration due to you from London May 3. 1663. Most incomparable Madam Your Excellencies most humble Servant Walt. Charleton MADAM YOur Books have here had a very honourable and publick Reception and are not only placed in the private Libraries of every single Colledge but in the publick also Not without the Applause and Admiration of the Learned men of this Place that one of your Sex a great Princess and not bred to the Arts with labour and toil as they are should with so much excellent variety appear among us And truly Madam when I consider the various Subjects you have past through it would pose me something to find a proper place in any Library for your Works to stand in whether among the Orators Poets Philosophers States-men or Polititians since every one of these may be ambitious to stand next you Nor can I forbear to let your Ladyship know that the two last Books which you were pleased to send to me added to the former which I had the honour to receive from you are for their number my lesser Library but for the value which I put upon the Noble Hand which drew the Lines far the greater Your Servant tells me you would willingly have some of them translated into the Catholick Language Though it will be hard to make them speak so good Latine as they now do English yet I have prevailed with an Ingenious Person of this Colledge to undertake the Work when ever you shall please to assign his Task whereby your Writings will be enabled to travel beyond the Seas and spread themselves both to your Honour and the Honour of your Nation as far as the Commonwealth of Learning reaches How far your Ladiship will be served in this particular when you are come to a resolution with your own Noble Thoughts you may please to signify to MADAM Your Ladyships real Honourer And most Obliged Servant Jasper Mayne Christ Church in Oxford May 20. 1663. MADAM I Have the ill Fortune when I am bound to acknowledge a very high Obligation to your Excellence at the same time also to stand in need of your Pardon that I have done it no sooner However I wish I had the Skill to perform the one part as answerable to your merit and my duty as I am confident of your goodness to give success unto the other The Books you condescended to bestow upon me have turned a sorry Study into a rich Library which are so much their own commendations besides the gloss your Honourable Name must give them that mine I fear may look like Injury and Rebatement to their Worth I must not Madam be too bold with your hours which you have devoted to better uses than the reading of such Papers but with the tender of my humblest Thanks to your Excellence for the high Honour you have vouchsafed me wishing you all the happiness of this and the better life to come I Rest MADAM Your most humble Servant Thomas Tully Edm. Hall Oxon June 30. 1663. MADAM IN obedience to your Commands sent me by your Servant in his last Letter I have put your Book of Tales into
those Muses and Graces which have taken up their residence in your Breast may with your Graces leave retreat for a while to us If your Grace think good so to favour us we shall all of us jointly and severally endeavour that hereafter his Excellency the great Duke of Newcastle may not want a Latine Poet for the perpetuating of his Honour and your Graces in forreign Countries Cambridge Dec. 16. 1667. Most renowned Princess Your Graces most devoted Servants The VICECHANCELLOR and the whole Senate of the Vniversity of CAMBRIDGE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCESS WE have received your Excellencies incomparable and most beneficial books with such grandure and reverence of mind as it is very fit we should as a pledge and warant of our future security for seeing we are to Contend in a bruitish world for life much more for honour with the reproaches of an illiterate age as it were now desparing of attaining to any perfection in our weighty affairs lest Cambridge and Philosophy and Learning should grow infamous Your Excellency hath only brought it to pass that we have hopes yet to live the memory of our name being perpetuated in your Excellencies Books which will not only survive our Universities but hold date even with Time it self and doubtless we shall live for as much as it pleaseth you most Excellent Princess so long as either Name or Honour remains either to Virtue or Books and incontinently this age by the reading of your Books will loose its barbarity and rudeness being made tame by the Elegancy both of your stile and matter and moreover it will not judge us to be no-bodies whom such an accomplish'd Princess hath not refused to make not only the Perusers but even the Moderators and Judges of her Works So as the very worth of your Excellencies Books hath brought us being willing altogether perswaded and convinced into a just admiration of your Excellency However your Grace may see how much your Praises are impaired not so much by the default of our Wit though that be very great as because you have the hap to live in such an unfortunate age Antient Greece it self the sole Governness of all just merits and rewards in the cause of such unparallel'd vertues would have spent her self in ten years Panegyricks neither would there be any cause why Isocrates should prefer his Athenians though they were Minerva's Scholars before Cambridge to whom your Excellency for such honour doth your Grace procure doth kindle a new yet never perishing Light Antient Rome it self would have resolved all your Praises into Statues and Monuments of your name by which there might arise continually Cornelia's and if there were any other therefore the Glory of their Age and the Honour of your Sex because your Excellency had not then a being but reserved by the Author of all things and born in after times for the honour and ornament of this age in which we live The Titles and Triumphs are long since obsolete and worn out the honour of Greece and Rome lives only in a little slender fame and those Marbles inscribed with the names of so many of the Learned are mouldered into dust and yet all these live and flourish in their due Praises and are the survivors of all their admirers and this Glory is only common to your Excellency with those famous Worthies that as neither the famous Statues nor the applause of their admirers nor the popular vote but the solid Grace of their Works and Virtue which is its own best Herauld doth declare their merits So your Excellencies most unparalleld worth and our thankful acknowlegment without the furniture of tumultuous applauses hath set apart a place in our Library that faithful Depository of Wits for your Grace where according to our slender provision which also the Custome of our Ancestors by whom we are the better enabled and our own ingenious confession we do with great earnestness desire we henceforth with acclamations that such an Illustrious Princess reason being now restored Philosophy confirmed Envy conquered doth esteem that in others which she honours in her own person We will therefore that this whatsoever it is be the argument of a Grateful mind Dated from our Coll. Octob. 6. 1667. Most Illustrious Princess Your Excellencies most humble Servants devoted to your Clemency and Honour The Master and Fellows of St. Johns Coll. in Cambridge Eminentissimae Celsissimaeque Principi D. Margaretae Duci Novocastrensi NOn mutamus Excellentissima Princeps de Lucubrationibus tuis universis idem sentimus quod de singulis Singulas autem quantoperè miremur ut Quamque beneficio tuo vidimus aut perlegimus neque Ipsa nescis nos aliàs judiciis certis non modo notum fecimus verùm etiam in omnem occasionem intenti porrò faciemus Hoc in Literas voluntas hoc quae tam latè se jam diffundit Eruditio tua singularis à togatis Hominibus dudum exegit Hoc Orationes hoc Epistolae hoc Numeri Salésque hoc Fundamenta hoc postremò quae Cantabrigiae tuae inscribis subacti judicii lectionis penè infinitae Pericula meruêre Quamvis enim ubique viget dum humanitati locus ullus erit vigebit Cantabrigia tamen Illius perpetuitati multum adjiciet Librorum tuorum Aeternitas Non igitur immeritò Te doctissima foeminarum de scriptis editis amamus suspicimus in illà Contemplationum Arce nos jactamus quam Tu Posteritati stupendis operibus extruxisti Clarissimè quidem inter Cives ad altissimum honoris apicem evectamicas Sed quod adhuc augustius est omnem illam fortume magnitudinem immortalis ingenii felicitate ità superas ut quae versare solemus exemplaria Graeca Latináque missa jam facere tuâ Vnius sapientiâ contenti esse possimus Quotiès enim in Philosophiam secedis sola Magistri nullius in verba juras sed in omni Doctorum familiâ laborans subtilitèr expendis acutè discernis ad unguem castigas quicquid aut risit Democritus aut flevit Hereclitus aut deliravit Epicurus aut tacuit Pythagoras aut intellexit Aristoteles aut ignoravit Arcesilas nec omittis siquid Majorum inventis addidêre novi homines Verulamius Harvaeus Cartesius Galilaeus Hoc Eminentissima Dux hoc demùm est heroicè Philosophari Sed quò Nos Tecum rapis Nam Principatum in Literis tenes nullis finibus circumscriptum nec usquam Tibi desinit Natura rerum at ultra Oceanum Mundus alter exurgit Mundum illum flamantem loquimur quem luce tuâ incendis accuratiùs multò quà m olim in Critia Plato describis Ad eum modum in omni scientiarum genere si pergas sapere certè mox id consequere ut in posterum Margareta non ampliùs Heroinae sed ipsius Philosophiae nomen habeatur Sic velut in antecessum audent sperare Cantabrigiae è frequenti Senatu 5 Idus Octobr. 1668. Eminentiae tuae addictissimi
am commanded by the several Colledges to returne their humblest Thanks to your Honour I inscribed every Book before I gave it to the respective Colledges with such an Inscription as Posterity might know who was their Benefactor For instance that to Magdalene Colledge thus .... Liber Collegii Divae Magdalenae ex Dono Illustrissimae Heroinae Margaretae Novo-Castrensis Marchionissae Authoris What this signifies your Honour may easily know I humbly beg your Honours Pardon for this confident and I fear impertinent Scrible of Q. Coll. Oxon. Mar. 24. 1655. MADAM Your Honours most Obliged Humble Servant Thomas Barlow MADAM YOur Honour pleased to Command two Books lately composed by your Excellency to be sent to Cambridge one to be placed in the Publick Library there and the other to be bestowed upon my self your Honours meanest Servant It is and shall be my Care that this together with that other formerly sent may remain a Monument to Posterity of your Excellencies great worth and singular affection to our University which I doubt not but will forever be most gratefully acknowledged by such as shall frequent the Common Library and especially by him whom this great Favour hath rendered Cambr. Octob. 22. 1656. Your Excellencies most Humble and Thankful Servant William Moore MADAM I have received from your Excellence the Book you sent me by Mr. Benoist which obliges me to trouble you with a short expression of my thanks and of the sense I have of your extraordinary Favour For tokens of this kind are not ordinarily sent but to such as pretend to the title as well as to the mind of Friends I have already read so much of it in that Book which my Lord of Devonshire has as to give your Excellence an accout of it thus far That it is filled throughout with more and truer Idea's of Virtue and Honour than any Book of morality I have read And if some Comique Writer by conversation with ill People have been able to present Vices upon the Stage more ridiculously and immodestly by which they take their rabble I reckon that amongst your Praises For that which most pleases lewd Spectators is nothing but subtile Cheating or Filch which a high and noble mind endued with Virtue from it's Infancy can never come to the knowledge of I Rest Febr. 9. 1661. Your Excellencies most humble Servant Thomas Hobbes ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCESS I Received by the hand of your ingenious Servant that most noble Present those excellent Books you were pleased to send our Colledge and the meanest of your most obliged and thankful Servants my self I confess I am and for ever should be amazed at your Excellencies condescention your great charity and magnificence to things so far below you did I not well know that the greatest goodness is most diffusive that those Glorious Heavenly Bodies even the Sun it self dispence their Rayes and benign Influences to Vallies and little Villages to Shrubs and Volehills as well as Mountains or the tallest Cedars I shall not call your Excellencies Books an addition to our private Library but this a little accession to them they being like their Illustrious Author a far greater Library of Arts and Ingenuity Sure I am even Bodlies Library cannot boast of any such Donation since King James sent his Royal Works and those of his late Martyr'd Majesty were placed there nor is like to do till Kings and your Excellency write and send again whose parts are not in a tedious way acquired but infused not got by Study or a laborious industry but given by the immediate and propitious Hand of Heaven and therefore more Divine like that first principle from whence they flow We have a Manuscript Author in Bodlies Library who endeavors to shew That Women excell Men your Excellency has proved what he proposed has done what he indeavored and given a demonstrative argument to convince the otherwise unbelieving World Your Works will be a just foundation of a lasting and immortal Honour to your self but I fear a reproach to our Sex and us when Posterity shall consider how little we have done with all our Reading and Industry and how much your Excellency without them I shall not indeavor what this and after ages will to commend your Writings they are their own best Panegyrique he that would do this well should have the genious and elocution of their great Author My onely aim is humbly to acknowledge a Debt I can never pay and return the unfeigned thanks and gratitude of Q. Coll. Oxon. May 21. 1663. Most Illustrious Princess Your Excellencies most devoted and most humble Servant Thomas Barlow MADAM I received a fortnight ago your Honours Letter and the Books you sent one to the University Library one to the Vice-Chancellor and another to my self Mr. Vice-Chancellor received your Book as indeed he ought with very much thankfulness and sense of the great Civility you had done him and commanded me to return his respects and hearty Thanks which he would have done himself but that both he and his Family hath been sore visited with Sickness for almost a whole year so that he has not been nor now is in a condition to write The like thanks and if possible infinitely more I must return in behalf of the University and my self being amazed at your goodness and undeserved Kindness that a person so Illustrious and for place and parts so Eminent should look upon so unconsiderable and impertinent a thing in black as I am but that I know the Sun doth shine on Shrubs as well as Cedars and Princes many times cast their Favours upon persons infinitely below them whence they can expect no return but gratitude and when I fail to pay that Tribute so justly due to your Honour may I have your hate which will be the greatest curse I am capable of I have as yet only read one Story in your Book and the Language and Ingenuity of it to me seems such that I am perswaded the famous Monsieur Scudeny would wish himself the Author of it If I mistake not I think I told you in my last that I had a Manuscript Book in my keeping for it was never yet Printed which the Author intitles thus Womens Worth or a Treatise proving by sundry reasons that Women excell Men. Many of my Sex will hardly believe it yet I believe your Honour may prove the best Argument in the World to convince them of their infidelity I humbly beg pardon for this rude and impertinent Scrible That God Almighty would be pleased to bless you and all yours is and shall be the constant Prayer of MADAM Q. Coll. Oxon. Sept. 3. 1656. Your Honours most Obliged Humble Beadsman Thomas Barlow MADAM THat I have not long e're this made at least some slender return of the meanest Gratitude a verbal acknowledgement I take the greater boldness now at length to Apologize for that it is in no small measure justly chargeable upon the Chain of those grand Favours wherewith as
the Roman Lady of old with Bracelets and Jewels I have been by your Excellency overwhelmed into an Extasy The truth of which is too much evidenced by an undeniable argument that like such as are newly rowsed out of a Trance not yet fully returned to my self I now begin to talk Idly Indeed I could not but deplore my own unhappiness as equally rack'd between two hateful extreams Ingratitude and Presumption that can neither be silently grateful to so Noble a Benefactress without too palpable and disingenuous unworthiness nor verbally thankful to so Illustrious a Princess without a Solaecism but that I am well assured your Excellencies Heroick Candor will at least connive at the most rude if cordial and humble expressions of a most devoted mind And such Madam is that I here with all submission present unto you loaded with such various Instances of your signal Favours as never can except we could suppose your Illustrious self may find out a Parrallel That so mean so obscure a Person should have the Honour of receiving first into his custody so rich a Treasure as the genuine Product and Issue of so Noble a Mind and then be commanded to divulge this his Glory by presenting them to a whole University in so Glorious a Name that this Honour a high Reward it self should yet be further enhaunced by a splendid Gift truly worthy the Grandure of the Donor and that transmitted by that Golden Pen which hath enricht the World with such excellent variety of inimitable Writings that a poor scanty Study should swell into a Library and become a Repository for such rich Volumes Pardon me Madam if at these reflections I wax proud and be transported beyond the narrow compass of my contracted self Your Excellencies Bounty a true Transcript of the Divine creates what it cannot find a worthiness in the Receiver and ennobles him whom it makes the object of generous Beneficence What Honourable reception your Excellencies former Works in the possession whereof each private Colledge-Library as well as that publick one of the University justly prides it self and boasts its riches found amongst us as indeed by very few Acknowledgements then signified How much more acceptable these latter Volumes are silence alone can best tell Few durst before adventure upon so difficult a Task and the Reason since that is more apparent and confirmed if I may without prophanation make use of the most Illustrious Lord Marquess his Expression None now dares write a Letter What concernes my most unworthy self is that I shall in Testimony of my thankfulness and as a perpetual monument of your Excellencies munificence to me when I die transmit your noble Gift as a sacred Heyre-loom to my Family and whilest I live shew your Princely Hand as the Letters-Patents of my greatest Honour which is to have this leave of wholly devoting my self ever to be Illustrious Madam Your Excellencies most Humble most Obedient Obliged and Vnworthy Servant and Vassall David Morton Madam SInce my last I received by the hands of your Grace's faithful Servant and my worthy Friend Dr. Mayne two Copies of my Lord Duke's life writ by your Grace one for our Colledge and another for my self I cannot but admire your Graces great goodness and condescention your continued munificence and charity to us excellent Virtues which I wish in all but find in very few which with all humility and a deep sense of the very many Obligations laid upon us we thankfully acknowledge He who thinks to requite undervalues your Grace's Favours which like your eminent parts and place are too great to admitt any proportionable returnes from us besides our constant Prayers and Gratitude which as in duty we stand bound we shall duely pay I have read your Graces Book which is writ with so much evenness and prospicuity of Stile so much truth and generous impartiallity as well becomes the Illustrious persons most concerned the great Subject and Author of it His Grace's high Birth and Fortune his unstained Royalty to his Prince his great Courage and prudent Conduct and such other his Graces eminent Virtues have deserved and your Grace's Hand has built him a lasting Monument which when Pyramids of Brass and Marble perish or being Sacrilegiously removed and stoln disappear will transfer both your Names and Honours to all Posterity That the good providence of Heaven would long preserve and prosper your Grace the honour of your Sex and by your unparalel'd Virtues the reproach of ours is the Prayer of Q. Coll. Oxon. Feb. 2. 1667. MADAM Your Grace's most Obliged Faithful and Humble Servant Thomas Barlow MADAME JE ne puis attribuer l'honneur que Vous m'avez fait de m'envoyer Vos oeuures qu'a ceque vous avez sceu qu'autres fois j'avois apporté icy d' Angleterre que ce qu'il y en avoit déja de publié C'est Madame que j'honore infiniment la Vertu partout où je la descouvre qu'elle est encore plus a admirer en Vostre Sexe dans les Personnes de Vostre qualité que dans le nostre parmis les scavants Je la propose en exemple à toutes les Dames dont ja'y l'honneur de m'pprocher je prens maintenant la liberté Madame de vous feliciter du plaisir que vous avez d'eslever si fort vostre ame par dessus les autres de vous mesler si avant dans toutes les intrigues de l'Vnivers C'est bien autre chose que de n'studier que celles d'une Cour que de ne choisir des ornamens que surune toileté Dieu veuille Madame qu'un si noble divertissement vous occupe tousjours que vous croyez ausi tousjours que je suis A Paris le 3 d'Octob 1669. MADAME Vostre tres Humble tres Obeissant Serviteur SORBIERE Tres Haut Puissant Prince CRoiroiton qu'il est possible que vostre tres-Illustre Altesse se pouvoit encore souvenir d'une si inutille creature que moy depuis 25 ans que je suis retirée de Paris parmis les plus rudes attaques de la Fortune qu'avoient agitée vostre Altesse comme les tonneres les Vents qui taschoient debrayler les forts Cedars du Lebanon en maintenant la sainte cause d'un des plus justes Roïs que jamais a estés ou que jamais y sera En li sant ceste histoire veritable de la vie de vostre Altesse faite par ceste Tresillustre Tres-verteus Princesse Madame la Duchesse j'avois de la peyne a retenir mes larmes ayant esté moy mesme une triste spectateur de toute ce que passa à Paris fidel intelligencier de tout ce que passoit en Flandre la Holland jusques au retour de vostre Altesse en Angleterre je veu que toute ces travers de la Fortune ne consista en autre
chose qu'a une perpetuel combat entre le voulloir le pouvoir de vostre Altesse L'une combattant pour l'establishement du Roy par le depence inevitable qu'il falloit pour maintenir sa juste cause presque aux abois non seulement par le sequestration des immenses revenues des biens de vostre Altesse mais par le constraint qu'on vous fit de vous retirer a fin pour ensuitte de ruiner la cause du Roy par le ruine qu'on vous fit le premier mais Dieu vous a suscitée des amys vous avez un pouvoir plus ample qu'auparavant il a faite de vostre Altesse come Dieu fait à Job en restituant le decouple son saint nom soit louée vous continue sa paix sa sainte Grace Je leu aussy la Philosophie de la Haute verteuse Princesse Madame la Duchesse veritablement Tres-curieuse en estate de faire honte à nostre miserable Philosophie de l'ecolle que n'est autre chose qu'un vray jeu des Cartes consistantes en Sophismes Authorites mal citêes la quelle a perdue la Theologie rendue la Medicine la Risée du Monde et pire que l'Emperice Et quoy que ie n'entend pas l'exercise du manage des chevaux non plus que le haut Almand toutefois ces precepts me semble si Majesteux que touts les maistres du monde en doibt prendre example C'est pour quoy je metteray ces Divines escrites dans le frontispiece de ma Bibliotheque a fin que les enfants des mes enfants profiteroient de tout ces riches enseignments Il reste maintenant que je remercie Tres-humblement vostre Tres-Illustre Altesse de la souvenance quelle volut avoir de moy qui n'est pas tant triste de me voir reduittê a une si age que me devroit donner craint a mourir citô come de me voir approchant à un age si grand qui me pourroit faire incapable de rendre a vostre Altesse les services dignes de la memoire que je dois conserver dans mon ame pour demeurer eternellement De Vostre Tres-Illustre Altesse le Tres-humble Tres-obeissant Serviteur D. AUISSONE MADAM WHen in the Book which your Ladyship hath been pleased by Mr. Benoist to honour me with I read so many Orations upon so many several occasions appropriated to so many several Persons my admiration rises to so great a height that I know not how to express it yet when I consider that you Madam are the Author of them all my Wonder then abates the sight which I have had of your former Works having raised my thoughts to anexpectation of as great a product from your Ladyship's Pen as this is but when I think what thanks to return for so great a Favour I am quite at a stand for were I as good a Poet or Orator as ever was it were impossible either in Prose or Poem to set forth a sufficient gratitude I find my self therefore who have no Skill in either obliged to say no more but only to beg your Ladyship's acceptance of the Humble Thanks of Bridgewater-house Dec. 30. 1662. MADAM Your Ladyship 's most humble Servant J. BRIDGEWATER MADAM YOu have convinced the World that your Sex can as well propagate Learning as our Species and taught us justly to own all from our Mother-Wit 'T is without the help of Classick Authors Schools or Languages that you Madam have composed your most excellent Poems Playes Fables The World 's Olio Opinions Philosophical and Physical which are the greatest Prize the Invention of Printing can boast of That Admiration and Praise which your Excellency merits must be the study of Ages to come which by your Works may be made more knowing Hitherto the stolen Tales of Learning which Scholars painfully disingenious have in several Ages Translated from lost Languages and entitled themselves the Authors are not Rules to try the truth of your notions nor means to clear them to us but skreen them from our captivated Apprehensions Who means to Improve Madam by your discoveries must study them alone and freeing themselves of the Pains of Grammar Rules tedious Methods and the Fallacies of unproved Maxims may arive early at Truths may know and be able to discourse things not senceless Distinctions and Philosophating your way from the visible effects of Nature may soon know more than the Schools make their Learning useful and Bankrupt the Trade of Pedantry That you have received Madam a Tribute of Applause from the Persons of most fame this Age affords that Universities have done you Homage as the Queen of Sciences will be the least of your Glory whilest you instruct not them but the Universe not this alone but succeeding Ages and will have your Fame as oft renewed as fresh Generations come to spy this World by the light you leave them which cannot be traduced for it's Parentage being sprung from your Rational Soul alone that borrowing nought from others can have no Rivall in Renown but may challenge that singular Honour which all Ingenious Persons publish and will be made Sacred to your memory by the most learned while I among the meanest shall live and dye Chelsey Sept. 4. 1662. MADAM Your Excellencies Highest Honourer and Humblest Servant CHARLES CHEYNE MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY I have according to your commands read your Excellencies Orations and will not disobey your Excellence in concealing my Opinion of them Was it to condemn any thing either in matter or the language having your Excellencies Warrant for it I would freely express it and if it be otherwise I beg your Excellencies Favour that Truth may not pass for Courtship as being to so great a Lady from so mean a man it is in danger to be suspected which your Excellence hath been pleased to foresee and forbid I am I confess no great reader of late of new Books having tried formerly that to find in them the least Jewel it must be sifted out of a great deal of Rubbish and the worst is that their Authors take up Errors upon trust one from another which the better they adorn with new dresses the greater injury they do to mankind To make up such Volumes out of Collections as Bees gather Hony from this and that Flower is rather laborious Industry than fine Wit But to spin out of one's own Bowels not Cobwebs as Spiders do but rich Tissues of Gold and Silver expresses a great Fancy well improved with much thinking As every man is not capable of so extraordinary Productions so is not every Woman but that Women are naturally as capable of it as Men if not more may easily be proved by making an exact comparison of both their Temperaments and Organs which would be a discourse too long to be inserted in a Letter and your Excellence hath so clearly
decided that Question by your unimitable Works that it saves sufficiently that trouble The greatest Masters in Oratory having been necessitated to acknowledge that the best art consists in hiding of it it may be inferred that it is yet better to have none at all as a natural Amble is to be preferred to that which is got with Tramells or the graceful Walking of a Gentleman more esteemed than the affected Demarch of a Dancer and it is truly a very rare thing to be a great Scholar without being acquainted with the Universities and Learned without the help of Teachers As there is variety of Sciences so there are several sorts of Capacities to acquire them some proving excellent in one kind some in another but to be capable of all as well Philosophy as Playes and Poems as Orations belongs only to a very few whose Statues should be erected in all the eminent Places in the World for their Glory and our Admiration I can hardly stop my Pen from describing what I have marked in general for to set down my particular Observations they are of so many extraordinary Things that ordinary Terms and I am capable of no other cannot make them to be understood and I am extreme sensible that even what is commonly called Defect here becomes comly like some Moles in a beautiful Face and that what seemes strange at first because it crosses the usual Methods of our Studies gives at last occasion of amazement to see your Excellency go so far in the way of knowledge with standing still in a manner and that others should run continually like Squerils in a Cage without advancing forwards which happens I believe because they dare not or cannot go one step without Stilts and your Excellence trusts to the goodness of your Legs having been pleased to allow me the honour to read your Manuscript I make no doubt but your Excellency will afford the patience to read this tedious Letter which though it makes a very small sound and a weak clapping of Hands is a part of that great Applause the whole World gives to your Excellency and a certain testimony that I am out of Inclination as well as Duty London Sept 4. 1662. MADAM Your Excellencies most Humble most Obedient and most Faithful Servant BENOIST MADAM HAd I returned you this Letter of Thanks for the great Honour you did me in sending me your Plays before I had read them it would have lookt like a peece of Flattery and my Praise of you would have made me like a Blind man who fell in love with a Beauty which he never saw But having taken time to read them all over and some of them more than once I can now upon a clear Judgement assure your Ladyship that my entertainment was so great that I know not whether I read them or saw them Acted For though the Plots Acts and Scenes be drest in several shapes and have that which is the life of Pleasure a musical variety yet the Wit and rich Composure of them is so much every where the same that I fancied my self a Spectator in the perusal and was doubtful whether your Ladyship with your Book had not sent me the new Theater too I never in any Dramatick Writings met with more Honour and Virtue matcht with more Sharpness and delight Which had it come from such a Pen as Jonson's who was always powring Oyle into his Lamp and owed most of his Excellencies to his laborious Industry and Art I should the less wonder But coming from a Quill held by a Ladys Hand who made it not her Toyl but Recreation to do rarely confirms me in an Opinion which I have long held That the best Art is nothing but the best Imitation of Nature and that your Books are the true face and others but the painted Madam as I look upon you as a great Princess for you are so so that which renders you to be the Glory and happiest of your Sex is that you can bring forth such Children of your Mind in a Wilderness and in your Countrey Walks can chuse all the Muses to be your Maids of Honour And truly when I consider one part of your happiness more which is That you have a Noble Lord to be your Fellow-Poet whose Harmonious Soul and Wit is exactly tuned to yours I have nothing left to wish but to be allowed to remain Oxford May 6 1662. Your Ladyships true Honourer Jasper Mayne MOST HONOURED I have waited long for a convenience to return my very humble gratitude to your Excellency that the poor Church of Litchfield hath some hope in due time to receive some furtherance in it's Reparation from your noble munificence I am one of those many that are perswaded that your Excellency spent more Treasure to maintain the Royal Cause in the late Warrs besides the hazard of your Person than any Subject in the three Realms and am at wonder that it is not most eminently rewarded and repayed My gratious Lord I having been one from my youth addicted to the ingenuity of Poetry whereof your Honour hath been a great Patron did betake my self thirteen years since to write three Books in Verse Latine and Heroick to bewail the most barbarous murther committed upon the person of King Charles the Martyr The work is long-since finisht and shall in due time be publisht In the third Book thereof mention being made of his Majesties most Heroick Champions these Verses following set forth your Excellency as I was able Quid Neo-Castrensis parat audentissimus Heros Musarum Martisque decus Mensaeque benignae Cogit ab egelidis Boreae regionibus agmen Intrepidum laethúmque volens pro Rege pacisci Receive this Testimony my very gratious Lord from him that is willing to embalm your memory with due praise Litchfield Feb. 10. 1663. Your Excellencies Most Devoted Servant Joh. Lich. Coven MADAM I Gave your Grace not long since the trouble of a very large Letter and know not whether I may wish it came safe being affraid there was some kind of rudeness in so tedious a Scrible I now send this to crave Pardon for the bold importunity of that and to desire another addition to your Graces Favours which is to honour the last Edition of my Witchcraft with your Illustrious Eye and Acceptance I suppose I have in it answered some of your Graces Objections and have added a Relation or two which I am well assured of and believe them good evidence of Fact I have ordered that Book I have so long spoken of to be sent with it if it can yet be procured and implore your Graces ingenious Candor in judging the faults of both For that of Preexistence I have many things to say more about it which I think not fit publickly to expose your Grace may command my inmost sentiments of those matters which I shall be proud to impart to a Person of so great Honour and Judgement being really Bath Dec. 22. MADAM Your Grace's Most
Humbly Devoted Servant Jos Glanvill MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOUR I held a long dispute within my self most Noble and most Honourable Madam whether I should not incurr the just censure of Condemnation by this bold presumption of writing to your Ladyship a person so noble so courted so admired and I so obscure that I could never brag of the happiness once to have seen much less of being known to your Honour my low condition on this hand deterred me much and on that your Illustrious Place balanced with a gallantry of Spirit well becoming your true Nobility in birth and match yet when I considered in my mind that your Honour was pleased to appear now in another dress under the Veil of Books I thought my self unworthy that exceeding Honour you have vouchsafed me if I should not at least acknowledge what I could never retaliate or express And who can express the merit of that noble favour The Heavenly Raptures of your Soul composed with that elaborate skill and beams of pure Wit that your lines pass admiration Were those Antients now alive who first discoursed of Atomes Matter Form and other Ingredients of the Worlds Fabrick they would hang their Heads confounded to see a Lady of most Honourable Extraction in Prime of youth amidst a thousand fasheries of greatness say more of their own Mysteries than they with all their worldly contempts long Lives Cells and Solitary Retirements Great Souls in the light of conversation gain far more Knowledge than mewed up Cloysterers and shew more to the World their Inventions shine more Orient their Illuminations more Refulgent though cloathed in vulgar termes their own peoples Dialect Few mount Fames Chariot with borrowed Wings and those old Philosophers too knew only their own Tongue Greek as your Honour complains you only speak your Native English Wherein they had some advantage of you a Language more copious round and full though the English can want no Elegance Propriety or Sweetness when it flows from such a Mouth as yours or drops from such a Pen. Go on then most Honourable Madam to bless the World with these noble Infants of your Brain give Posterity an example for after Ages since former have given you none but what you have outstript It were Impiety to wish you less great that Courtships might not defraud us of your Immortal monuments No be great still Diminutions would but cool those Heroick Fires within you let Fortune confer all her Gifts on you as Nature hath all her endowments That you may raise your Muse to such a Pitch As all shall Gaze and Wonder at none reach And I assure you most Noble Madam you can never stand higher or greater in the whole Worlds esteem than you now are and ever shall be in the most deserved Veneration of him who glorieth to subscribe himself Utrecht Dec. 2. 1653. Most Honourable and most Virtuous Lady Your Honours most Humble and most Devoted Servant Robert Creyghtone May it please your Excellence My ever Honoured Most Noble Lord. WHen I last had the honour to kiss your Excellencies Hands at Antwerp you were pleased to bestow on me The Passions of the Soul Written by the Noble Du Cartes in Token of your singular Love and Respect to me The Work Learned the Author Renowned rendered the Gift Eminent but much more conferred by so Honorable a Peer upon so unconsiderable a creature as my self and all ought to have been vehement incentives to a thankful acknowledgement yet hitherto your splendor even in this your Eclipse hath so prevailed over my modesty that I buried your Favour not in Oblivion but Silence thinking it well became my condition rather to hold my peace than speak below the merit or slat the sublime dignity of the Person to whom I should speak But now your Excellencies late accumulation of excessive Charity in sending me by Dr. Morley the Works of your most Honourable Vertuous and Learned Consort hath chidd my Ingratitude unto a Blush beyond Confusion and made me feel some of Du Cartes Passions transferred from your first gift to your second I should have consecrated all my pains to your never dying Fame as to a prime Patron of Learning and I receive Books from you Books rare and transcendent distilled from the Brain of a most Noble Minerva a Lady your own Lady whom delicacy of Education height of Birth and Place might well have exempted from such inferiour employments yet composed with so curious art quick stile refined airy notions Words so proper elegant and delightful both in Verse and Prose that I must ever admire the Harmony of her inspiring Soul And thence reffecting on my self blame my own unworthiness who have spent more time at Universities without any benefit to Posterity than her Honour hath lived years in the World so fresh and vigorous is her Fancy so dull and superannuated mine yet in this dejection of Mind I am much refreshed that your Excellence accounts me worthy to read her lines you cast me down and raise me up cast me down by her Writings which as I never expected so I never hope to parallel and you raise me by the uncancelled estimation which you still bear in memory of my mean self It is your goodness my ever Honoured Noble Lord to peruse low things with Grace and Mercy and the method of all Honourable Souls to shine on Shrubs that their Favours may higher advance in Prospect You subjugate my Affections as you do great Horses to your Managery Napoli gli putedri Roma scozzona gli huomini the Italian Proverb goes Naples tames Horses and Rome Men The Virtues of both reign in you In the rare art of taming Horses you excell all mortals and subdue Men by a no less wonderful Affability that he must be out of the light of reputation whom you have not particularly obliged or pointed out with some mark of Honour I triumph much in your respect of me not that I have deserved it but that you have vouchsafed it and shall wish no longer to be blest then I shall evermore endeavour to express my self in all things Vtrecht Dec. 2. 1653. My ever Honoured most noble Lord Your Excellencies most Obliged and most affectionate Servant and Beadsman Robert Creyghton MADAM I was very much surprized when your Servant saluted me from so Illustrious a personage but when he produced those noble Volumes as an intended Testimony of your Ladyships respect the unexpectedness of so great an honour made me suspect the Messenger of a mistake and that he presented me with what was meant fitter for the Colledge or at least to some more worthy and considerable person than my self But he persisting still in the same story my doubts were swallowed up into admiration of your Ladyship 's singular and unparalleld goodness which seems to me to be Corrival with the excellency of your Wit and to seek an equal share of Glory in searching out Objects of such condescending Acts of Civility and Bounty
the Hand of a fit person to translate them into Latine as I think either University can afford Being an exact Master of both Languages and enabled with a Genius sit for such an undertaking I have also read as much of your Poetry translated by a young Scholar as hath hitherto past his Pen. In some parts whereof I find him happy enough But your Excellent Fancy expressing it self sometimes in Terms of Art and Words only known to Philosophy he tells me the hardest part of his Task will be how to find out current Roman Words to match them To remove which difficulty I have directed him to read Lucretius before he proceed farther who having softned the most stubborn parts of Natural Philosophy by making them run smoothly in his tunable Verses by an easy Imitation will teach him to do the like Having in these two particulars most readily served you I should return you my Studied Thanks for the several Books you are pleased to send me if they did not make me unhappy by conversing with the Children of your Mind at so great a distance from the incomparable Parent For I do assure your Excellency I look upon Welbek as long as you are there not as a Noble House seated among solitary Groves but as a perfect Court of Wit and Learning where you have all the Muses for your Maids of Honour and the best Philosophers Statesmen Orators and Historians for your Counsellors And all these for the Glory of your Sex created from your self Had I the Art like some here to teach Birds to Speak All the Fowls which fly in your Woods should presently be transformed to Nightingales and taught Musick enough to sing the praises of so great a Mistress To whose Vertues I shall always remain London April 21. 1664. A most real Honourer And Devoted Servant Jasper Maine MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY HAving received a Copy of your Works for the use of the Library of Christ-Church and another as a particular favour to my self I hasten to make my acknowledgments for both and must beg leave to say that your Excellency has found the way to make the Arts truly liberal while you not only adorn them by your Culture but propagate them by your munificent distribution So that it will rest a Problem not easily to be resolved whether you appear greater in your acquisitions or obligings whether you instruct the World or enrich it more But it were an envious piece of curiosity to labour in the Heraldry of your Virtues which are all greatest because Yours and are not to be the Subject of Contest but Argument of Praise and Admiration In particular manner they are such to Your Excellencies Most Humble and Obliged Servant Jo. Fell. MADAM I Am very sorry that my unhappy Fate hath necessitated an unbecoming Slowness in acknowledging a Favour that requires all possibilities of Gratitude and exceeds them But yet had I nothing else to say in excuse of my no earlier return to the last Noble effects of your Graces goodness it were sufficient That my sence of that mighty Honour was too big for my Pen and when I began to speak my resentments of it I found my self as unable to express them as to deserve their occasion Bet yet Madam this is not all the reason for I was from home when your Grace's Present came and have been so almost ever since otherwise I had not added to my want of merit on other accounts that also of appearing insensible and defective in endeavours of acknowledgment I must say endeavours for my Gratitude can rise no higher Since my receipt of your Grace's ingenious Works I have as my occasions would permit cast my Eyes again into them and I am sorry they cannot dwell there where I find so pleasing and so instructive an entertainment And though I must crave your Pardon for dissenting from your Grace's Opinion in some things I admire the quickness and vigor of your Conceptions in all In which your Grace hath this peculiar among Authors that they are in the strictest sense your own your Grace being indebted to nothing for them but your own happy Wit and Genius a thing so uncommon even among the most celebrated Writers of our Sex that it ought to be acknowledged with wonder in yours And really Madam your Grace hath set us a patern that we ought to admire but cannot imitate And whereas you are pleased sometimes to mention your being no Scholar as an excuse of defects your modesty supposeth By that acknowledgment you shew our imperfections that pretend we are so rather than discover any of your own As for the last Trifle I was bold to present to your Graces Eye it is much indebted to the obliging reception you were pleased to afford it and there is nothing that sets such a lustre on your Graces great Wit and Intellectual Perfections as that sweet candor of your Spirit that renders you so accessible even to your meanest admirers Whereas your Grace is pleased to object against some part of the design of my Discourse that it sets the perfection of the sense higher than that of Ratiocination I humbly desire that your Grace would consider that there are two sorts of Reasoning viz. Those that the Mind advanceth from its own imbred Idaea's and native Store such are all Metaphysical Contemplations And those natural researches which are raised from experiment and the objects of sense The former are indeed most perfect when they are most abstracted from the grosness of things sensible but the others are then most compleat when they are most accomodated to them and when they are not they are Aery and Phantastick Now what I have said about those matters is to tie down the mind in Physical things to consider Nature as it is to lay a Foundation in sensible collections and from thence to proceed to general Propositions and Discourses So that my aim is that we may arise according to the order of nature by degrees from the exercise of our Senses to that of our Reasons which indeed is most noble and most perfect when it concludes aright but not so when 't is mistaken And that it may so conclude and arrive to that perfection it must begin in sense And the more experiments our reasons have to work on by so much they are the more likely to be certain in their conclusions and consequently more perfect in their actings But Madam I doubt I begin to be tedious and therefore at present dare add no more but that I am Illustrious Madam Your Grace's most Humble and most devoted Servant Jos Glanvill MADAM I Had not thus long deferred my dutiful Acknowledgments to your Ladyship for the Honour which I received with your Ingenious Book of Orations if I had not been in hopes to recommend my Gratitude by presenting your Ladyship with this Poem lately Printed and though it ought not to be ranked amongst those pollished Pieces which are derived to the World from
that Book of Experimental Philosophy which your Grace mentions And to this Madam I have no more to add at present but that I am Bath Aug. 25. Your Grace's most Humble Honourer and Servant Jos Glanvill MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE IT was most fit and equal that as your great Name and Merit transcends the glories of other Persons it should be also as singular in its Description and have an Historian some way proportioned both in Honour and unparallel'd Capacities to its self which just felicity having happened to your Grace by the Pen of your Illustrious Princess it remained that one narrow dialect should not confine that Relation to this our Island which was to give Example to the Heroes of all Nations And now that in this respect also your Name is happily Consecrated to Eternity We of this Place are to look upon it as a signal Honour to be made Sacrists to it and to think it a particular Reward of our suffering in that cause which you so gloriously asserted and accompanied in its fall to be judged a proper repository for the Noblest History of its greatest and most busy transactions and of the Person most gloriously concerned in them And certainly while Oxford is an University of Loyalty as well as Learning which I hope it will never forget to be your Graces virtues and atchivements will be their equal argument of Study and Imitation as now your Favours are of their most grateful recognition and acknowledgment which in their behalf with all possible Devotion are laid at your Graces Feet by Dec. 26. Your Grace's Most Obedient most Humble And most Faithful Servant J. Fell. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE IT was my misfortune to be abroad in Kent when the Letter wherewith your Grace vouchsafed to Honour me came to London And therefore as I came late to taste the Pleasure of so high a Favour I hope your Grace will permit me to plead that delay in excuse of this slow return of my most humble Acknowledgments and Thanks for it My most Noble Lord were it not known by experience that great Persons and great Minds are most apt to stoop from their own height and own mean and inconsiderable services offered to them I should say it was too low a Condescension in your Grace to take notice of my readiness to comply with your Desires Wherein beside the discharge of my Duty I did likewise serve the ends of my Ambition it having ever been the Vanity of Souldiers to think themselves dignified by the Honours done to their General This made me with great Delight employ my self in Designing that for your Grace which I should be sorry to live to accomplish being already unhappy enough in Burying too many Princes For the thing it self I am glad to see the King do that which is so decent and worthy of him as to order your Grace a Tomb among the Kings who have always been so near to him and who stood up so close to his Father in extremity of Danger and so bravely that had not God designed to restore the Crown in his own Miraculous way it had certainly been done before by your Hand However your Grace hath prepared for your self a more Noble and more lasting Monument in the Fame of your Heroick Actions of some of them I had the happiness to be an Eye-witness upon which pretence I humbly beg the Honour to retain unto your Grace in the Quality of Bromley in Kent July 2. 1671 My LORD Your Grace's most Obedient Souldier and Servant Joh. Roffen To the Incomparable Princess MARGARET Dutchess of NEW-CASTLE MADAM AMong many other things by which your Grace is pleased to distinguish your self from other Writers this seems to be not the least remarkable that whereas they imploy only their wit labour and time in composing Books You bestow also great summs of Money in Printing Yours and not content to enrich our Heads alone with your rare Notions you go higher and adorn our Libraries with your elegant Volumes To that general Charity which disposeth you to benefit all Mankind you have added a singular Bounty whereby you oblige particular Persons and out of a Nobleness peculiar to your Nature you cause your Munificence to Rival your Industry This Madam among many other your Excellencies Gratitude commands me to acknowledge Your Grace having been pleased to number me among those whom you vouchsased to honour with such extraordinary Presents For which I know not how to shew my self duely thankful otherwise than by celebrating your Generosity and returning you some account of the good effects they wrought in me while I perused them Which considering the Noble End for which you wrote them and my inability to make you a more proportionate retribution will not I hope be unacceptable to you To this purpose therefore I am bold to send your Grace this rude Paper Which yet I design not as a Panegyric of your worth for what affects us with admiration strikes us also with dumbness and Stars are best discerned by their own lustre but as a short Scheme of my own grateful Sentiments And if I be not so happy to deliver them in Language agreeable to the dignity of the Subject I humbly beseech you to consider that such occasions offer themselves very rarely and that nothing is more difficult than to make the Pen observe Decorum where Reason is put into disorder Justice Madam requires you should pardon the effects of that astonishment whereof your Wonders are the cause They tell us that the End of all Books is either profit or pleasure but I think that distinction as many other in the Schools might well be spared because in truth profit supposeth pleasure and pleasure is the greatest profit nor am I ashamed to profess that in all my reading I have no other aim but pleasure It will not then I hope Madam be thought derogatory to the Profitableness of your Grace's Books If I acknowledge my self to have received very great pleasure in reading them And this pleasure was so charming it so far transported me as often to make me wish you might never entertain a resolution of causing your works to be Translated into any other Language that so all Ingenious Forreigners invited by the Fame of your most delightful Writings might be brought to do Honour to the English Tongue by learning it on purpose to understand them For I am zealous for the Reputation of my native Language and of so communicative a temper as to desire all men should participate of what I find delectable Besides I could not but remember that I had known a great Man of our Nation who studied Italian only to acquaint himself with the Mathematiques of Galileo in his Del Movimento and Saggiatore and Spanish meerly out of love to the Incomparable History of Don Quixot and was thereupon the more apt to promise my self that your Grace's Works no less admirable in their kind than either of those would have the
and the Fame of your Writings I most humbly beg your favourable Interpretation of what I have here weakly said and with all Submission imaginable cast my self at your Feet as becomes Your Graces Just Honourer and most Intirely Devoted Servant Walter Charleton From my House in Covent-Garden May 7. 1667. MADAM I Had the Honour to hear so good Solutions given by your Excellency upon divers Questions moved in a whole Afternoon you was pleased to bestow upon my unworthy Conversation that I am turning to School with all speed humbly beseeching your Excellence may be so bountiful towards my Ignorance as to Instruct me about the Natural Reason of those Wonderful Glasses which as I told you Madam will fly into Powder if one breaks but the least top of their tails whereas without that way they are hardly to be broken by any weight or strength The King of France is as yet unresolved in the Question notwithstanding he hath been curious to move it to an Assembly of the best Philosophers of Paris the Microcosme of his Kingdom Your Excellence hath no cause to apprehend the cracking blow of these little innoxious Gunns If you did Madam a Servant may hold them close in his Fist and your self can break the little end of their Tail without the least danger But as I was bold to tell your Excellence I should be loath to believe any Female Fear should reign amongst so much over-masculine Wisdom as the World doth admire in you I pray God to bless your Excellence with a dayly increase of it and your worthy self to grant that among those Admirers I may strive to deserve by way of my humble Service the Honour to be accounted Hague March 12. 1657. MADAM Your Excellencies most Humble and most Obedient Servant Huygens de Zulichem I have made bold to joyn unto these a couple of poor Epigrams I did meditate in my Journey hither where your Excellencies Noble Tales were my best entertainment I hope Madam you will perceive the intention of them through the Mist of a Language I do but harp and ghess at MOST EXCELLENT PRINCESS THe Obligations by which your Grace has eminently engaged your Servants in particular and in General the whole world or at least the Judicious and Civil part of it are so many and great that to ennumerate them to this present Age may seem a large History and to Generations to come a real Romance The happiness was so great we received the last year when we had by your Graces Permission the Honour to pay our Duties to your happy self that the Contemplation of it by your Grace's absence adds the more to our Infelicity But we shall not wholly despair to be restored to the same capacity of waiting on your Grace which we are extreamly ambitious of In the mean time presenting my Wifes most humble Service to your Grace I take the confidence to subscribe my self April 22. 1668. MADAM Your Graces very great Honourer And most Devoted Humble Servant BERKLEY MY LORD IT is not Strange to me that your Grace is pleased to surprise me with such obliging civilities which are so essential to your Nature and made customary by so many frequent Habits that it were as difficult for your Grace not to do Acts like your great self as it is for others especially in this degenerating Age to imitate yours I return your Grace my most humble Thanks for the high Honor and Favour of your Books received by my self and Son which are much to be valued by judicious Persons for the worth contained therein and rendred most Illustrious for the great Authors sake who will be much admired not only by the present Age but by all succession of Ages as long as Loyalty Sincerity and high Acts of Honour are esteemed by Men and have any attractive Power My Lord I most humbly beseech your Grace to believe me to be Berkeley-House at St. Johns April 22. 1668. Your Grace's high Honourer And most Obedient Servant BERKELEY MY LORD THe Right your Grace has to be a Supream Patron of Poesy is given you from your Affection to the Muses and the excellent merit of your own Compositions which have so many ways beautified Poesy and delighted our Theatres as they have received from your Wit if possible equal Glory with your other Gallantries and Actions which have so much honoured our Nation for this Cause I must beg your Graces Pardon that I presume to present you with this inconsiderable Poem of mine of which though I wanted not Inclination I durst not adventure a direct Dedication to your Grace with whom I had not the Honour of an Acquaintance sufficient to incourage such a boldness as also some doubt it might not deserve a Patronage from so excellent a Poet which made me rather venture its publick Dedication to this Honourable Person of my Alliance I have mentioned before my Book though this my private Address to your Grace must be my greater Ambition since you are not only a most accomplished Judge but an Author yet I presume to say that your Grace may challenge some concernment in this Poem as it treats of the past Glory of our Ancestors in which the Antiquity and Honour of your Blood could not but have a high Renown and as your Grace has scarce a Parallel in all Acts of Generosity and Nobleness so your Incomparable Lady doth no less excell in her Quality and Sex the unequal'd Daughter of the Muses besides all other her voluminous Productions which compleat the Wonder of her Name to whom I have presumed to present likewise with your Lordship a Book of my Poem as an expression to both your Graces how much you are Honoured by May 3. 1669. My LORD Your Graces Very Humble Servant Edward Howard MADAM I Owe it to your Graces singular condescention and goodness that my Letters are not displeasing and I see a great deal of Generosity in your Graces acceptance of such mean things as my slender stock of Knowledge can impart As for your Inquiry about the Plastick Faculties I Answer that they are those whereby the Body is formed at first and by which the Alimental Juices are after through the whole course of Life orderly distributed for the purposes of growth and nutrition But whether as your Grace inquires they are Faculties inherent in the Soul or are only Mechanical Motions of the Body I cannot determine certainly But I rather incline to the Platonists who will have the Soul to be the Bodies Maker and they affirm as is ordinary though with some diversity in the Names and Presentation That there are three sorts of Faculties which they Phancy as Analogous parts or Regions in the Soul Viz. The Mind so they call the highest Faculties of abstract Reason and Understanding which is the First The Second they call the Soul Viz. as it is united to the Body and exerciseth the operation of Sense The Third is the Image of the Soul which is those
Obliged Humble Servant Tho. Shadwell MADAM I Am to beg your Graces Pardon for my self and this imperfect Piece for which I have borrowed the Patronage of your Name I am not ignorant of the disadvantage that Name might appear with before such a Trifle as this Play if it were not too well known and had been too often prefixt to excellent Pieces of your own to suffer any detraction now This Dedication will only in some measure express the Honour that the Humblest of your Servants has for your Grace and the Power you have to protect so defenceless a Poem But Madam I confess it is too great a Presumption for me to hope that your Grace that makes so good use of your time with your own Pen can have so much to throw away as once to read this little offspring of mine And but that before I found not only Pardon for an Offence of this kind but encouragement I should despair of having this forgiven When none of all the Nobility of England gives encouragement to Wit but my Lord Duke and your excellent self you are pleased to receive favourably and encourage the very endeavours towards it and under that notion this poor Play begs your Pardon and Reception Though it met with opposition from the Malice of one party yet several men of Wit were kind to it But whatsoever opposition threatens that or me it can never prejudice either if that be Protected by your Grace and I be thought what I really am London April 20. 1671. MADAM Your Graces most Humbly Devoted Servant Tho. Shadwell MADAM BEing an Hundred and fifty Miles from London at a place called Chaddeston near Manchester I had an account but the last Post of the receit of your Graces Noble present otherwise you had received a more early Acknowledgment with my humble Thanks which are all the return I can make for that and many other Favours I have received from Welbeck It had been Bounty enough and as much as I could have expected for your Grace to have Pardoned the presumption of my Dedication which intituled you to the Patronage of so sleight a thing but to reward my Crime is beyond expression Generous Thus your Grace like Heaven rewards the intention without considering the imperfection of the Act. My Design was in some measure to testify my Gratitude and the Honour I have for your Grace but even this Acknowledgment has run me more in debt Your Grace is thus resolved to be before-hand with all your Servants Let them be never so dilligent your Benefits will out-go their Services and they can never over-take your Bounty I for my part am in despair of ever coming near it But nothing shall ever hinder me from making use of all occasions I can lay hold on to testify the great Honour I have for my Lord Duke and your Grace and that I am MADAM Your Graces most Humble and most Obedient Servant Tho. Shadwell May 25. 1671. MADAM COnsidering that the Divine Gods accept of Offerings though never so trivial when that their poor and obliged Creatures offer them with true Devotion incourages me here by your Favours and Goodness to believe alike of your Ladyship and to hope your Pardon and acceptance of this Sacrifice of Thanks which in all Humility I thus Dedicate for the Honour of your Book of which I dare not say I am now unworthy since I find where it comes it has the Efficacy of Great Seals and Patents to meliorate both Persons and Places and such Esteem and Reverence as they come welcomed with I must always and much more account due to your Ladyships Orations and to be Eternally paid by MADAM Your Ladyships Most Devoted Humble and Obliged Servant Bullingbrooke MOST ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCESS THough deprived so many years of your most Noble Presence yet left your Grace so perfect an Idea in our Thoughts of your great Virtue and those rare faculties of your Understanding wherewith Nature hath adorned your Grace so that we ever do admire the same it being often our most pleasing delight to discourse thereof besides the remembrance of your many great and undeserved Favours formerly received and though we stand infinitely Obliged for the same unto your Grace yet you are pleased to increase our Obligations by Honouring us with the Noble Gift of five several Books together of your Graces last Edition which especially for what belongs to those Sublime matters of Natural Philosophy are only for the most Learned and Judicious Understandings and for us to admire and keep them as a singular mark of your Graces great Benevolency toward us and an Emblem of your high Perfections after our Lives to be left as a Testimony of the same In the mean time we humbly intreat your Grace to preserve us all in your good Opinion and Honour me with a belief that I am as long as I live to the utmost of my weak Ability Your Graces Most Humble and most Obedient Servant J. Duartes Antwerp Octob. 20. 1671. My Sisters with the tender of their most Obedient Service Humbly kiss your Graces Hand MADAM UNto the Rich and Incomparable Present of your Excellencies Works wherewith you have been pleased to Honour the University I have by the special appointment of Mr. Vice-Chancellor given a just reception which word I confess we could not use without being guilty of great rudeness but that we have placed them by that Illustrious Piece wherewith his Excellency your Renowned Lord had before Honoured us which is it self Incomparable Indeed Madam the University finds her self oppressed herein with so many Obligations in one that She knows not where to begin her Acknowledgments as considering that not only her Repositories are dignified to be the Cabinet of so rich a Jewel but that She is singled out by your Excellency and valued above the rest of the World for her Approbation and as your Excellency pleases to stile it to be a Judge of it Alas Madam that is an Office we dare not assume not only without censure of Arrogance but even of Impropriety for seeing that every one is to be judged by their Peeres who shall undertake to be Judge of that that hath no Peer We may see other things by the Light but to perceive the Light it self we cannot call for another Light so neither may this gallant Work be Judged but by its own Innate Excellency and the splendor it self carrys in it No Madam 't is Honour enough for us that we are taught by it we will not usurp upon it and shall count it our Pride and not our Shame to be out-done by so Transcendent an Example We acknowledge that we are become instructed in the Sciences which our selves profess Philosophy Oratory Physick Poetry we write them over our Doors but we find them herein at a farr cheaper rate sent home to those Doors and that by a hardiness of Invention which your Excellency first hath shewed unto the World and that an easy one
Thankfulness Forasmuch then through your Graces Labours Minerva's Pupils have now obtained that Divine thing which they may without error pursue to wit a calm repose in all our Studies we therefore judge that a more Honourable Monument was never at any time erected to any of the ancient Kings or Emperours than what we here humbly dedicate to your Graces worthy name and memory To Margaret the First Princess of Philosophers Who hath dispelled Errors Appeased the differences of Opinions And restored Peace To Learnings Commonwealth From the Colledge of the Sacred and Individual Trinity Octob. 5. 1668. POEMS c. To the most Illustrious and most Excellent Princess The Marchioness of NEW-CASTLE After the reading of her Incomparable POEMS MADAM WIth so much Wonder we are strook When we begin to read your matchles Book A while your own excess of Merit stays Our forward Pens and do's suspend your Praise Till time our minds do's gently recompose Allayes this Wonder and our Duty show's Instructs us how your Virtues to Proclaim And what we ought to pay to your great Fame Your Fame which in your Countrey has no Bounds But wheresoever Learning 's known it sounds Those Graces Nature did till now divide Your Sexes Glory and our Sexes Pride Are joyn'd in you and all to you submit The brightest Beauty and the sharpest Wit No Faction here or fiercer Envy swayes They give you Mirtle while we offer Bayes What Mortal dares dispute those Wreath's with you Arm'd thus with Lightning and with Thunder too This made the great New-Castle's Heart your prize Your Charming Soul and your Victorious Eyes Had only pow'r his Martial mind to tame And raise in his Heroick Breast a Flame A Flame which with his Courage still aspires As if Immortal Fewel fed those Fires This mighty Chief and your great self made One Together the same Race of Glory run Together on the Wings of Fame you move Like yours his Virtue and like his your Love While we your Praise endeav'ring to rehearse Pay that great Duty in our humble Verse Such as may justly move your anger you Like Heaven forgive them and accept them too But what we cannot your brave Hero payes He builds those Monuments we strive to raise Such as to after Ages shall make known While he Records your deathless Fame his own So when an Artist some rare Beauty draws Both in our Wonder share and our Applause His Skill from time secures the Glorious Dame And makes himself Immortal in her Fame George Etherege To her Excellency the Lady Marchioness of New-Castle on Her Incomparable Works MADAM WHen with stol'n Metaphors we would display Those Glorious Lights which rule our Night and Day We call them Lamps and Spangles and suborn Our Wits t' obscure what we cannot adorn But when some fading Beauty haunts our Eyes Tempting to Praise what Greatest Souls Despise We can advance the Phrase all smoothly runs Her Cheeks are Roses and her Eyes are Suns Great Virtues only by themselves are prais'd What 's highest higher by no Art is rais'd 'T is proper only to our Imperfections To need or to admit our Wit 's Protections Were your Pen's Noble Issue such small things As the fine Poet to his Mistris sings Or else such pretty Babies as are sent Out from the lab'ring Press to Complement Our Childish Age which nothing so wel pleases As Lispings Weakness and Wit 's Diseases Then I perhaps amongst the rest might wast Some Paper to be your Encomiast And in the present mode pick Crums and Scraps From Sirs that wear their Phancyes in their Caps And Cook a Mess of Bumbast to delude And glut at once the gaping multitude But 't is your Wit 's prerogative to be As far above all Praise as Flattery And since you have said All we boldly may Excuse our selves you 've left us nought to say In ev'ry Line you give us we descry Your Panaegyrick our Apology Where all 's so well like you that to conceive Ought but our wonder may admittance have Is to suppose you either cannot see Our meanness or will veil your Majesty Then he betrays your Name whoe're essayes To load it with vain Epithets of Praise Who seems to understand all you have writ T' advance his own doth much abase your Wit Madam we 're in a maze such Glorys can Not be beheld by what is only Man When you are pleas'd to work new Miracles We 'll see and read what 's yours and nothing else When you give Eyes as well as Light when you With Language will on us new Tongues bestow When you can make us write just as you do We 'll learn to praise your Works But sure it is Impossible you can do all but this 'T is equally absurd for us to guess We e're should do so much or you ought less Thanks for our Freedom from the learned Thrall Of thrice-three Mistresses you 're One and All Those antique wits which erest would not be seen But in a mist of obscure Tongues which Screen More Follies far than Phansies are become Like their own Pump'd-out Oracles all dumb Great Aristotle and his greater Master VVith their long rabble have the same disaster These Paper-Armies Bodly's Goal contains Your Captives are fretting in Iron Chains One Lady 's pregnant Brain has slain whole hosts Of Rabbys and quite laid their Paper ghosts VVhich haunted all our Studies and perplex'd Our wearied thoughts with a Moth-eaten Text. VVho would not give a life that he might live In the next Age to see the Learned strive VVhose Margin should strut biggest with your Name VVho raise up highest Pyramids of Fame Over your peaceful Ashes may it be Such Phoenixes can know mortality VVas it her modesty for she 's a VVoman Made Nature Coy and shew her self to no man She walk'd in Vizors till she met with you VVhat wonder if she did retir'dness vow And to our Ruffian Sex shewd Nun that late Unveil'd to your Sex and but one of that You need not fear to die she needs must live Her self whose Noble Office 't is to give Life to our late Posterity each line Of yours must be their Oracle your Shrine Your Images the work of your own Pen Shall frustrate all the curteous Cheats of men Pronouncing all your true adorers blest Without the help of Conjuror or Priest Be merciful to Captives Madam and Kill not all those that bend at your Command Your softest Sex your Noble Order shall Vote all such cruelty Apocryphal You have subdu'd the VVorld of Learning spare At least so much alive as may declare Who was the Conqueror that all may know VVhate're survives is owing all to you You have out-done what 's mortal Imitate Those Pow'rs above which to maintain their state Let some poor vassals live and worship'd are Not by whom they destroy but whom they spare Then sheathe your Conqu'ring Pen since nothing now Remains unvanquish'd but your Works and you On her Grace the Dutchess of
New-Castles Closet WHat place is this looks like some Sacred Cell Where holy Hermits anciently did dwell And never ceas'd Importunating Heav'n Till some great Blessing unto Earth was giv'n Is this a Ladys Closet ' tcannot be For nothing here of vanity you see Nothing of Curiosity nor Pride As all your Ladies Closets have beside No mirrour here in all the Room you find Unless it be the mirrour of the Mind Nor Pencil here is found nor Paint agen But only of her Ink and of her Pen. Which renders her an Hundred times more fair Than they with all their Paints and Pensils are Here she is Rapt here falls in Extasy VVith studying high and deep Philosophy Here these clear Lights descend into her Mind VVhich by Reflection in her Books you find And those high Notions and Idea's too VVhich but herself no VVoman ever knew Whence she 's their chiefest Ornament and Grace And Glory of our times Hail Sacred Place To which the World in after times shall come As unto Homer's Shrine or Virgil's Tomb Hon'ring the Walls in which she made abode The Air she breath'd and Ground whereon she trod Counting him happy who but sees the Place And happier who least Relick of her has For whose Sole Inkhorn they as much would bid As once for Epicletus's they did Thus Fame shall Celebrate and thus agen The Arts shall honour her who honour'd them Whilst others who in other things did trust Shall after Death lye in forgotten Dust To the Illustrious Princess Margaret Dutchess of New-Castle on Her Incomparable Works VErtue and Wit 's great Magazine Accept an Offering to your Shrine Whose wondrous Raptures needs must raise All Souls to Poetry or Praise With such Amazement I was strook Madam when first I read your Book To see your Sex with so great Parts Treat of all Sciences and Arts As if Inspir'd i' th' Times of Old When Poetry all things foretold That Waller Denham and the Wits Who write such mighty things by fits I did expect should all at least Have sent in Presents to the Feast But that they choose to write no more Shews they re out-done and so give o're Though 't is allow'd their luck was such They did Coyne Mettle that held Touch Like Min'ralists they sprung a Vein Of Oare they could not long maintain Your Pregnant Brain does every day Spring Mines of Gold without allay The Dross you so Refine that we Only the purer Mettle see Yours is th' Elixar of true Wit Because it finds all Subjects fit Had Spencer liv'd your Works t' have seen You must have been his Fairy-Queen Great Virgil would have thought it due Not to name Dido Queen but You. And had you liv'd when Ovid writ You 'd been the Subject of his Wit He would have made a richer Piece Of you than Helen fair of Greece You 've all that 's blest in humane kind In outward form and in your mind When you with Beauty do invite Your Virtue checks proud Appetite Some Ladys think they 'r born in vain Unless they Teem your fruitful Brain Brings better issue here 's the odds They please but Men you please the Gods Strange Power 't is you Govern by What Nature asks you can deny Great Miracle in what you do That can Charm Men and Angels too Th' honour and envy of our Age That write for Gown-men and the Stage Though you speak to us in one Tongue You seem all Languages t' have known And Secrets to the World reveal As if the Gods did sometimes steal To tell you News and from above You knew all passages of Love We must conclude 't is only thence You can have your Intelligence By which our Knowledge you so raise You merit Crowns that ask but Bayes To the most Accomplish'd and Incomparable Princess The Dutchess of New Castle her Grace MAdam 't is you whom both in Form and Mind Nature has favour'd 'bove all Female kind You have been constant from the first of Youth To Friendship Justice Chastity and Truth Wit in your Childhood did begin to reign And like the Tide came flowing in amain Wherein such high Conceptions did lye As rais'd a new and true Philosophy Things Natural and Moral you have writ And both in Scenes and Poems shew'd your Wit Letters and Dialogues declare your Fame In History you Eternalize the Name Of your Dear Lord when truly you relate His Loyal Actions for the King and State All this makes you admir'd and envied too ' Cause you 've done more than any yet could do In you the Glory of your Sex do's shine And all perfections in your Soul combine What ever is thought Virtue 's found in you Your mind is high and yet 't is humble too Not Pride as Envy stiles it but a Flame More noble strives t'immortalize your Fame For you do stoop to those of low descent And with compassion to their Case resent Which Fortune Frowns upon How can there be A nobler Mind and nearer Deity Nay Fortune seeing how Nature favour'd you To her Perfections added Honour too Thus Honour Beauty Wit and Virtue joyn'd Made you the greatest Wonder of your Kind Let none presume to draw your Picture then For you surpass all th' art and Skill of Men Who e're looks on you with a stricter view Sees Natur 's chiefest masterpiece in You. To the Glory of her Sex the most Illustrious Princess the Lady Marchioness of New-Castle upon her most admirable Works NOw let enfranchiz'd Ladies learn to write And not Paint white and red but black and white Their Bodkins turn to Pens to Lines their Locks And let the Inkhorn be their Dressing-box Since Madam you have Scal'd the walls of Fame And made a Breach where never Female came Had Men no Wit or had the World no Books Yet here 's enough to please the curious looks Of Every Reader such a General Strain Would reinstruct the School-boy-world again Philosophers and Poets were of old The two great Lights that humane minds control'd The one t' adorn the other to explain Thus Learnings Empire then was cut in twain But Universal Wit and Reason joyn's To make you Queen nor can your sacred Lines Without a Paradox be well express'd Truth never was so naked nor so dress'd Majestick Quill that keeps our minds in Awe For Reasons Kingdom knows no Salique Law Or if that Law was ever fram'd 't was then When Women held the Distaff not the Pen. The Court the City Schools and Camp agree Welbeck to make an University Of Wit and Honour which has been the Stage Since 't was your Lords the Heroe of this Age Whose Noble Soul is Steward to great Parts And do's dispence his Reasons and his Arts His Wit and Power his Greatness and his Sense With as much Freedom and Magnificence As when our English Jove became his Guest And did receive a more than Humane Feast With Arts of Wit he mixes those of Force And Pegasus is his old Manag'd Horse No