still remained,) and that dangerous symptoms appeared in England; when the royal authority was here trodden under foot; when one plot was prosecuted openly, and another secretly fomented, yet even then was Ireland free from our contagion. And if some venomous creatures were produced in that nation, yet it appeared they could not live there; they shed their poison without effect: they despaired of being successfully wicked in their own country, and transported their evidence to another, where they knew it was vendible; where accusation was a trade,' where forgeries were countenanced, where perjuries were rewarded, where swearing went for proof, and where the merchandize of death was gainful. That their testimony was at last discredited, proceeded not from its incoherence, for they were known by their own party when they first appeared; but their folly was then managed by the cunning of their tutors: they had still been believed had they still followed their instructors; but when their witness fell foul upou their friends, then they were proclaimed villains, discarded and disowned by those who sent for them; they seemed then first to be discovered for what they had been known too well before; they were decried as inventors of what only they betrayed: nay their very wit was magnified, lest being taken for fools, they might be thought too simple to forge an accusation. Some

'This was shamefully the case in the time of the Popish Plot; to prove which, several perjured Irish witnesses were produced.

of them still continue here detested by both sides, believed by neither; (for even their betters are at last uncased;) and some of them have received their hire in their own country. For perjury, which is malice to mankind, is always accompanied with other crimes; and though not punishable by our laws with death, yet draws a train of vices after it. The robber, the murderer, and the sodomite, have often hung up the forsworn villain; and what one sin took on trust, another sin has paid. These travelling locusts are at length swallowed up in their own Red Sea. Ireland, as well as England, is delivered from that flying plague ; for the sword of justice in your Grace's hand, like the rod of Moses, is stretched out against them; and the third part of his Majesty's dominions is owing for its peace to your loyalty and vigilance.

But what Plutarch can this age produce to immortalize a life so noble? May some excellent historian at length be found, some writer not unworthy of his subject; but may his employment be long deferred! May many happy years continue you to this nation and your own; may your praises be celebrated late, that we may enjoy you living rather than adore you dead! And since yet there is not risen up amongst us any historian who is equal to so great an undertaking, let us hope that Providence has not assigned the workman, because his employment is to be long delayed; because it has reserved your Grace for farther proofs of your unwearied duty, and a farther

enjoyment of your fortune: in which, though no man has been less envied, because no other has more nobly used it, yet some droppings of the age's venom have been shed upon you. The supporters of the crown are placed too near it, to be exempted from the storm which was breaking over it. It is true, you stood involved in your own virtue, and the malice of your libellers could not sink through all those folds to reach you. Your innocence has defended you from their attacks, and your pen has so nobly vindicated that innocence, that it stands in need of no other second. The difference is as plainly seen betwixt sophistry and truth, as it is betwixt the style of a gentleman and the clumsy stiffness of a pedant. Of all historians, GoD deliver us from bigots; and of all bigots, from our sectaries! Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understandings are warped with enthusiasm; for they judge all actions, and their causes, by their own perverse principles, and a crooked line can never be the measure of a straight one. Mr. Hobbes was used to say, that a man was always against reason, when reason was against a man :-so these authors are for obscuring truth, because truth would discover them. They are not historians of an action, but lawyers of a party; they are retained by their principles, and bribed by their interests: their narrations are an opening of their cause; and in the front of their histories there ought to be written the prologue of a pleading," I am for the plaintiff," or "I am for the defendant."

We have already seen large volumes of state collections, and church legends, stuffed with detected forgeries in some parts, and gaping with omissions of truth in others: not penned, I suppose, with so vain a hope as to cheat posterity, but to advance some design in the present age: for these legerdemain authors are for telling stories to keep their trick undiscovered, and to make their conveyance' the more clean. What calumny your Grace may expect from such writers is already evident; but it will fare with them as it does with ill painters; a picture so unlike in all its features and proportions reflects not on the original, but on the artist; for malice will make a piece more unresembling than ignorance; and he who studies the life, yet bungles, may draw some faint imitation of it, but he who purposely avoids nature, must fall into grotesque, and make no likeness. For my own part, I am of the former sort, and therefore presume not to offer my unskilfulness for so excellent a design as is your illustrious life. Το pray for its prosperity and continuance is my duty, as it is my ambition to appear on all occasions,

Your Grace's most obedient

and devoted servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

• Conveyance, in the last age, was the common term for

sleight of hand.

THE

LIFE OF PLUTARCH.

I KNOW KNOW not by what fate it comes to pass, that historians, who give immortality to others, are so ill requited by posterity, that their actions and their fortunes are usually forgotten; neither themselves encouraged while they live, nor their memory preserved entire to future ages. It is the ingratitude of mankind to their greatest benefactors, that they who teach us wisdom by the surest ways, (setting before us what we ought to shun or to pursue, by the examples of the most famous men whom they record, and by the experience of their faults and virtues,) should generally live poor and unregarded; as if they were born only for the publick, and had no interest in their own well-being, but were to be lighted up like tapers, and to waste themselves for the benefit of others. But this is a complaint too general, and the custom has been too long established to be remedied; neither does it wholly reach our author. He was born in an age which was sensible of his virtue, and found a Trajan to reward him, as