Part 2 — To her Royal Highness THE Princess ANN of Denmark.
Reading edition
MADAM,
What was at first address’d to the Ladies in General, as seeming not considerable enough to appear in your Royal Highnesses Presence, not being ill receiv’d by them, and having got the Addition of a Second Part, now presumes on a more Particular Application to Her who is the Principal of them, and whose Countenance and Example may reduce to Practice, what it can only Advise and Wish.
And when I consider you Madam as a Princess who is sensible that the Chief Prerogative of the Great is the Power they have of doing more Good than those in an Inferior Station can, I see no cause to fear that your Royal Highness will deny Encouragement to that which has no other Design than the Bettering of the World, especially the most neglected part of it as to all Real Improvement, the Ladies. It is by the Exercise of this Power that Princes become truly Godlike, they are never so Illustrious as when they shine as Lights in the World by an Eminent and Heroic Vertue. A Vertue as much above Commendation as it is above Detraction, which fits equally Silent and Compos’d when Opprest with Praises or Pursu’d with Calumnys, is neither hurt by these nor better’d by the other; for the Service of GOD, and the Resembling Him, being its only Aim, His Approbation in a soft and inward Whisper, is more than the loud Huzza’s and Plaudits of ten thousand Worlds.
I shall not therefore offend your Royal Ear with the nauseous strain of Dedications; for what can one say, when by how much the more any Person deserves Panegyric, by so much the less they endure it? That your Royal Highness may be All that is truly Great and Good, and have a Confluence of Temporal, Sanctify’d and Crown’d with Spiritual and Eternal Blessings, is the unfeigned and constant desire of