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ΤΟ THE

DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH *.

OUR Grace has given leave, that these few Poems

You

fhould appear in the world under the patronage of your name. But this leave would have been refused, I. know, had you expected to find your own praises, however juft, in any part of the prefent addrefs. I do not say it, my Lord, in the ftile of compliment. Genuine modefty, the companion and the grace of true merit, may be furely distinguished from the affectation of it as furely as the native glowing of a fine complection from that artificial colouring, which is used, in vain, to fupply what Nature had denied, or has refumed.

Yet, permit me just to hint, my Lord, while I reftrain my pen from all enlargement, that if the faireft public character must be raised upon private virtue, as furely it must, your Grace has laid already the fecureft foundation of the former, in the latter. The eyes of mankind are therefore turned upon you: and, from what you are known to have done, in one way, they reason-ably look for whatever can be expected from a great and good man, in the other.

The Author of these lighter amusements hopes foon to prefent your Grace with something more folid, more deferving your attention, in the life of the firft Duke of Marlborought.

You

* This dedication was prefixed by the author to a fmall collection of his poems published in 1762. N. † A work which has not yet appeared. N.

You will then fee, that superior talents for war have been, though they rarely are, accompanied with equal abilities for negotiation: and that the fame extenfive capacity, which could guide all the tumultuous fcenes of the camp, knew how to direct, with equal skill, the calmer but more perplexing operations of the

cabinet.

In the mean while, that you may live to adorn the celebrated and difficult title you wear; that you may be, like him, the defender of your country in days of public danger; and in times of peace, what is perhaps lefs frequently found, the friend and patron of those ufeful and ornamental arts, by which human nature is exalted, and human fociety rendered more happy: this, my Lord, is refpectfully the wish of

YOUR GRACE'S

moft obedient

humble fervant.

TRUTH

TRUTH,

I N

RH Y M E:

ADDRESSED ΤΟ

A CERTAIN NOBLE LORD,

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING POEM.

"It has no faults, or I no faults can spy:
It is all beauty, or in blindness I."

Imprimatur,

meo periculo,

CHESTERFIELD.

TRUTH IN RHYME.

T

ADVERTISEMENT.

HE following extract from his Majesty's Speech to both Houses of Parliament, which, by every man in his dominions, would be thought the nobleft introduction to a Poem of the firft merit, is peculiarly fuitable to introduce this. However unequal thefe verfes may be to the subject they attempt to adorn, this fingular advantage will be readily allowed them. It will, at the fame time, be the fullest and best explanation of the Author's meaning, on a theme so interesting and uncommon. The words are these :

MARCH 3, 1761.

* In confequence of the act paffed in the reign of my late glorious predeceffor, King William the Third, for settling the fucceffion to the Crown in my Family, the commiffions of the Judges have been made during their good behaviour. But, notwithstanding that wife provision, their offices have determined upon the demise of the Crown, or at the expiration of fix months afterwards, in every inftance of that nature which has happened.

I look upon the independency and uprightness of the Judges of the land as effential to the impartial administration

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