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I am not vain enough to boast that I have deserved the value of so illustrious a line; but my fortune is the greater, thar for three defcents they have been pleased to diftinguish my poems from those of other men; and have accordingly made me their peculiar care. May it be permitted me to say, That as your grandfather and father were cherished and adorned with honours by two successive monarchs, so I have been esteemed and patronized by the grandfather, the father, and the fon, defcended from one of the most ancient, most confpicuous, and most deserving families in Europe.

It is true, that by delaying the payment of my laft fine, when it was due by your Grace's acceffion to the titles and patrimonies of your house, I may feem, in rigour of law, to have made a forfeiture of my claim; yet my heart has always been devoted to your service: and since you have been graciously pleased, by your permission of this address, to accept the tender of my duty, it is not yet too late to lay these volumes at your feet.

The world is sensible that you worthily fucceed, not only to the honours of your

ancestors,

ancestors, but also to their virtues. The long chain of magnanimity, courage, eafiness of access, and defire of doing good even to the prejudice of your fortune, is so far from being broken in your Grace, that the precious metal yet runs pure to the newest link of it: which I will not call the last, because I hope and pray, it may defcend to late posterity: and your flourishing youth, and that of your excellent Duchess, are happy omens of my wish.

It is observed by Livy and by others, that fome of the nobleft Roman families retained a resemblance of their ancestry, not only in their shapes and features, but alfo in their manners, their qualities, and the distinguishing characters of their minds: some lines were noted for a stern, rigid virtue, savage, haughty, parfimonious, and unpopular: others were more sweet, and affable; made of a more pliant paste, humble, courteous, and obliging; studious of doing charitable offices, and diffusive of the goods which they enjoyed. The last of there is the proper and indelible character of your Grace's family. God Al mighty has endued you with a softness, a A 4 benefibeneficence, an attractive behaviour winning on the hearts of others; and so sensible of their misery, that the wounds of fortune seem not inflicted on them, but on yourself. You are so ready to redress, that you almost prevent their wishes, and always exceed their expectations: as if what was yours, was not your own, and not given you to possess, but to bestow on wanting merit. But this is a topic which I must cast in shades, lest I offend your modesty, which is so far from being astentatious of the good you do, that it blushes even to have it known: and therefore I must leave you to the fatisfaction and teftimony of your own confcience, which though it be a filent panegyric, is yet the best.

You are so easy of access, that Poplicola was not more, whose doors were opened on the outside to fave the people even the common civility of asking entrance; where all were equally admitted; where nothing that was reasonable was denied; where misfortune was a powerful recommendation, and where (I can scarce forbear faying) that want itself was a powerful mediator, and was next to merit.

The history of Peru affures us, that their Incas, above all their titles, esteemed that the highest, which called them Lovers of the poor: a name more glorious than the Felix, Pius, and Augustus of the Ro man emperors; which were epithets of flattery, deserved by few of them: and not. running in a blood like the perpetual gentleness, and inherent goodness of the Ormond Family.

Gold, as it is the purest, so it is the softeft, and most ductile of all metals: iron, which is the hardest, gathers ruft, corrodes itself; and is therefore subject to corruption: it was never intended for coins and medals, or to bear the faces and infcriptions of the great. Indeed it is fit for armour, to bear off infults, and preserve the wearer in the day of battle: but the danger once repelled, it is laid aside by the brave, as a garment too rough for civil conversation: a neceffary guard in war, but too harsh and cumbersome in peace, and which keeps off the embraces of a more humane life.

For this reason, my lord, though you have courage in an heroical degree, yet I' ascribe it to you, but as your second attribute:

bute: mercy, beneficence, and compaffion, claim precedence, as they are first in the divine nature. An intrepid courage, which is inherent in your Grace, is at best but a holiday kind of virtue, to be seldom exercised, and never but in cases of neceffity; affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word, which I would fain bring back to its original fignification of virtue, I mean Goodnature, are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind, and staff of life: neither fighs, nor tears, nor groans nor curses of the vanquished, follow acts of compaffion, and of charity: but a fincere pleasure and ferenity of mind, in him who performs an action of mercy, which cannot fuffer the misfortunes of another, without redress; lest they should bring a kind of contagion along with them, and pollute the happiness which he enjoys,

Yet since the perverse tempers of mankind, fince oppreffion on one fide, and ambition on the other, are sometimes the unavoidable occasions of war; that courage, that magnanimity, and resolution, which is born with you, cannot be too much commended: and here it grieves me that I am fcanted in the pleasure of dwelling

on