Parthenissa, that most fam'd romance the six volumes compleat / composed by ... the Earl of Orrery.

To my LADY NORTHUMBERLAND.

MADAM,

WEre this Present but as great as the Confidence which makes it, I should then have assum'd that as my Election, which now I do as my Pennance. For Parthenissa has protested to me, though she have been nourish'd in misfortune, yet my Pen has been her highest; and that to Dedicate her to any but my Lady Northum∣berland, were to injure her as much in the address of her Adventures, as in the Relation. Perhaps Madam, my opinion may be yours, and that you will esteem her as guilty in her Iustice, as I am in my fault, since the pennance she enjoyns me for one crime, is to commit a great∣er. 'Tis the respect I owe to you and to Truth, which makes me use this expression, for I cannot write of Parthenissa so ill, but to write to My Lady Northumberland is worse. But Madam, that you may not conclude me a wilful offender, which seemingly I may appear, by a knowledge of the greatest fault, and then by an election of it: I have this to alledge in my justification, that had not the Theory of Virtue taught me the noblest operation of it, is to pardon offences, your practice had: For I have found you as much pleas'd in confer∣ring on me your pardon, as I have been to receive it, or troubled to need it. So that I cannot term that a crime in which you take delight, nor condemn that performance which affords you any; nei∣ther can you suspect this Truth, when for the manifestation of it, I decline not so criminal a proof. Thus Madam, you may see I injure you, but to do you right, and publish my transgression, but to do the same of your Mercy. But since Parthenissa has us'd me at a contrary rate, I shall not scruple to imitate her example, and to render her fault as evident as she has mine: 'Tis, Madam, that she offer'd me

her pardon for this Book, if in it I would draw her Coppy by making you my Original; but my respect and my disability render'd me unca∣pable of the Will and Power of effecting it, neither can I better illu∣strate the greatness of the former, than by proportionating it to that of the latter. You would not be what you are, could I have made her what she would be; since to render any resembling you, were to injure you in your noblest Prerogative, and to act a crime, which Nature has not, or rather could not perform. Besides, Madam, could I have represented her such a perfection, I could not have committed that offence, for which this reparation was prescrib'd, for I could not have continu'd the Romance, since thereby my Hero's friendships must have yielded to their Loves, and with much more reason, than their doing so, could have been condemn'd. There is a necessity in Books of this nature, that the Beauties in them must have some particular charms, the one above the other, but you possess all those graces in a more sublime perfection, than any one of them; does any one of them, and I have heard Parthenissa profess with as much concern as truth, that if there be any thing in the Book which bears her Name that relishes of the Romance, 'tis only because you are not the subject of it: Your Beauty would bring credit to more transcendent things, than are there related, and make that which would require Faith in any other case, appear as much Reason in yours, as that which confines me inviolably to the highest ambition'd Title of,

MADAM▪

Your most Obliged, most Faithful, And Most Obedient, Humble Servant.