TO The Honourable the Lady DELVES.
Reading edition
MADAM,
When I think of your Goodness, it gives me Encouragement to put my Play under your grand Protection; and if you can find any thing in it worthy of your Praise, I am sure the Super-Naturals will like it. I do not flatter when I say, your Taste is universal, Great as an Empress, Sweet and Refin’d as Lady Malpas, Sublime as Lady Sarah Cowper, Learned and Compleat as Lady Conway, Distinguishing and Clear as Mrs. Madin, Gay, Good and Innocent as Lady Bland. I have often thought that you are a Compound of the World’s Favourites, that all meet and rejoice together in one; the Taste of Montagu, Wharton, ivor Meredith, Stanhope, Sneid, or Byrom; the Integrity and Hospitality of Legh of Lime, the Wit and Fire of Bunbury, the Sense of an Egerton, fervent to serve as Beresford or Mildmay, belov’d like Gower. If you was his Rival, you’d weaken the Strength of that most powerful Subject. I hope your eternal Unisons in Heaven will always sing to keep up the Harmony in your Soul, that is Musical as Mrs. Leigh, and never ceases to delight; raises us in Raptures like Amante Sposa, Lord Essex, or the Sun. If every Pore in every Body in Cheshire was a Mouth they would all cry out aloud, God save the Lady DELVES! that illuminates the Minds, of Mortals, inspires with Musick and Poetry especially,
Your most Humble Servant,
Lord FLAME.
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