The Works of John Dryden (Volume 3); Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AX EVENING'S LOVE; OR, THE MOCK ASTROLOGER. COMEDY. TO HIS GRACE, WILLIAM, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE One Of His Majesty's .most Honourable Privy Council, And Of The MOST NOBLE ORDER OP THE GARTER, fyc. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE, Amongst those few persons of wit and honour, whose favourable opinion I have desired, your own virtue, and my great obligations to your grace, have justly given you the precedence. For what could be more glorious to me, than to have acquired some part of your esteem, who are admired and honouredby all good men; who have been, for so many years together, the pattern and standard of honour to the nation; and whose whole life has been so great an example of heroic virtue, that we might wonder how it happened into an age so corrupt as ours, if it had not likewise been a part of the former. As you came into the world with all the advantages of a noble birth and education, so you have rendered William Cavendish, duke of Newcastle, distinguished himself in the civil wars of Charles I. He might have possessed himself of Hull, had the king more early resolved on an open rupture with the parliament. When the war broke out, he levied an army of 8000 men, secured the northern counties for the king, and raised the siege of York. The invasion of the Scots prevented his farther success; but lie defeated the parliamentary forces in several actions, and shewed all the talents of a great soldier. After the loss of th battle of Marston Moor, which Prince Rupert hazarded in opposition to his advice, he left England in disgust, and did not return till the Restoration. He was much respected when abroad, and acquired the favour of many princes, and, amougst others, of DoR VOL. III. O John of Austria. His skill in the equestrian art was, perhaps,...