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A59312 The female prelate being the history of the life and death of Pope Joan : a tragedy: as it is acted at the Theatre Royal / written by Elkanah Settle ... Settle, Elkanah, 1648-1724. 1680 (1680) Wing S2684; ESTC R32649 43,452 109

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THE Female Prelate BEING The History of the Life and Death OF POPE JOAN A TRAGEDY As it is Acted at The Theatre Royal. Written by ELKANAH SETTLE Servant to His Majestie Facit Indignatio Versus Juven LONDON Printed for W. Cademan at the Popes head in the New Exchange 1680. TO The RIGHT HONOURABLE THE Earl of Shaftsbury My LORD SCriblers of my Profession pay so natural a Devotion to Greatnes● that the least dawn of Approbation from an Eminent Personage fires 'em with a more than ordinary Assurance and is Armour sufficient against the Censure of the World This my Lord has enboldened me to that height that I can confidently scorn the malicious Critick on the one side and the revenging Jesuit on the other for what blinded Bigot will dare shew his missive obedience when your Lordship's Name the greatest Charm against all their Sorceries appears to own me Your Lorship 's Name which must blossom on the Records of our latest Posterity It would be needless in me to declare how well your Lordship has deserved in England it is a Theam of which the most ignorant of the Orcades are full and which the most envious of the Court must acknowledge England in its greatest Exigence has found your Lordship its fastest Friend and at that time too when honest actions were perform'd in danger when the sword of Damocles hung over the heads of the most zealous Protestants But 't is not enough that the world acknowledges your Lordship the greatest of States-men unless it does your Merit that justice to own you the boldest and the loyallest too for State-policy is of that comprehensive quality and includes such Motions of that strangely-distant Latitude that I can onely compare it to the Poets God of Fire it either refines the Oar and mints the very Gold that adorns the shining Palaces of Kings or forges out the Thunder that destroys ' em Nay too often that very Policy that has the fairest face of Allegiance whose Counsels should be a Guide and Light to Majesty for without derogation to the Divinity of a Crown Kings are sometimes but Men is but the meer Exhalation of Greatness a Vapour which the Breath of Soveraignty raises higher or lower whilst like the Cloud that either rains hails or snows it either cools or warms but with the Air it meets with And thus the States-man that should be the Counsellour is but the Eccho of Power rather the Minister of his Prince's Pleasure than Glory and so little executes the great Office he undertakes that he is scarce the shadow of what he represents But all such flattering and mercenary service your Lordship 's braver Soul abhors whilst your undaunted Councels are unshockt by Frowns and unbribed by Honours Our England has in one circumstance the fate of Troy our Establisht Religion is our true Palladium and whilst that is preserved we are invincible unhurt by all the Hostility of the world but that once gone our ruin'd Troynovant is but an universal Conflagration and he that like your Lordship most studies to secure that Palladium maintains the brightest Jewel in his Princes Crown and is both his Soveraign's best Subject and his Countries truest and faithfullest Champion Thus whilst there is that Party for whose Defeat your Lordship has so strenuously and so justly labour'd you have onely acted as an English Patriot Your unfathom'd Depths foresaw the dangerous Faction no less threatning than a growing Phaeton and in your Lordships vigorous and indefatigable opposition your very Enemies if they will take leisure to think must with shame confess your Memorable and Loyal Councels have with a plain and unclouded Aspect so much tended to an universal and eternal preservation of Peace that all men of sense must plainly see you would rather side with a counselling Phoebus than a destroying Jupiter would rather by your timely advice prevent the Combustion of a world than call down Thunder too late to punish the Incendiaries Thus your Lordship 's unwearied Service to your King and Country must undoubtedly spring from an unquestionable Principle of Loyalty and as no little Argument for it If Loyalty were ever truely generous 't is in your Lordship for with the Philosophers description of Vertue 't is alone its own Reward And now I cannot but reflect on your Lordships numerous Enemies nor better rank 'em than under these three Files The first the Romish Zealot a certain kind of ignorant Devote to whom the very Fundamentals of his Religion are as unintelligible as the Language his Prayers are in 'T is true Rome has a wiser sort of Disciples of which is the person of Sense and Quality but then considering ten to one his Ancestors were all of his opinion he thinks it inconsistent with his glory either to examine or alter his Faith on any Terms lest in so doing he should in effect call his Forefathers all Fools and give his whole Generation the Lye And thus by a certain kind of wilde Irish Honour who draw with their Horses tails for the reputation of their Grand-sires their infatuated Zeal is entayled upon 'em and they hold their Titles by no other Tenure The second sort is the ambitious Libertine who always sides with the Rising Party who tho indeed he is of no Faith at all yet appears as zealous for a Religion of Quality as a Spanish Jew at Mass and rather than stand out when his Interest is at stake would e'en turn Mahometan and almost circumcise to be Great The last Class is a sort of People of neither Birth Principles nor Estates a kind of indigent Bullies who in all Companies run down Religion and Property because they have neither Conscience nor Lands to lose and therefore are for Change at any Rate and desire Tumults onely to scramble for Bread If these are your Lordships Enemies I will not be so impertinent as to tell the world who are your Friends But to excuse all the Discouragements you meet if your Lordship's Truth and Desert are not always prosperous 't is onely where your Oracles have had the fate of a Prophecying Cassandra However encouraged or depress'd your Lordship preserves an equal Serenity of Minde and whereas the Malice of your Adversaries would cast an Aspersion on your glorious Toyls by saying your Zeal's too violent your Lordship may justly make this Answer That your Vehemence like the fire in the Flint never sparkled till it was struck from you and that too by the severest Stroke that all good men should most sensibly feel your Countries imminent Danger Nor is your continued Scrutiny into Reasons Policies Men and Manners the whole Fatigue of your Soul for to draw the true portraict of the Earl of Shaftsbury he is a perfect Character between the restless Alexander and the sullen Diogenes you want the head-long Ambition of the first and the Moroseness of the last and between 'em both at once you study and enjoy the world And if amidst your more serious Affairs so