The Ambitious Step-mother/Epistle Dedicatory

My Lord,

If any thing may attone for the Liberty I take in offering this trifle to your Lordship, it is, that I will Engage not to be guilty of the Common Vice of Dedications, nor pretend to give the World an account of the many good qualities they ought to admire in your Lordship. I hope I may reckon on it as some little piece of merit, in an age where there are so many people write Panegyricks, and so few deserve 'em. I am sure you ought not to sit for your Picture, to so ill a hand as mine. Men of your Lordship's Figure and Station, tho Useful and Ornamantal to the Age they live in, are yet reserv'd for the Labours of the Historian, and the Entertainment of Posterity; nor ought to be aspers'd with such pieces of Flattery while living, as may render the true History sus​pected to those that come after. That which should take up all my Care at present, is most humbly to beg your Lordships pardon for Importuning you upon this account; for imagining that your Lordship, (whose hours are all dedicated to the best and most important uses) can have any leisure for this piece of Poetry. I beg, my Lord, that you will receive it, as it was meant, a mark of my Entire Respect and Veneration.

I hope it may be some advantage to me, that the Town has not receiv'd this Play ill; to have depended meerly upon your Lordships good nature, and have offer'd something without any degree of merit, would have been an unpardonable fault, especially to so good a Judge. The Play it self, as I present it to your Lordship, is a much more perfect Poem than it is in the representation on the Stage. I was led into an Error in the writing of it, by thinking that it would be easier to retrench than to add: But when I was at last necessitated, by reason of the extreme length, to cut off near six hundred Lines, I found that it was maim'd by it to a great disadvantage. The Fable (which has no manner of relation to any part of true History,) was left dark and intricate, for want of a great part of the narration, which was left out in the first Scene; and the Chain and Connexion, which ought to be in the Dialogue, was interrupted in many other places. But since what was omitted in the Acting, is now kept in, I hope it may indifferently Entertain your Lordship at an unbending hour. The faults which are most generally found, (and which I could be very proud of submitting to your Lordship's Judgment, if you can have leisure for so trivial a cause,) are, that the Catastrophe in the fifth Act is barbarous, and shocks the Audience. Some people, whose Judgment I ought to have a deference for, have told me that they wisht I had given the latter part of the story quite another turn; that Artaxerxes and Amestris ought to have been preserv'd, and made happy in the Conclusion of the Play; that besides the satisfaction which the Spectators would have had to have seen two Vertuous (or at least Innocent) Characters, rewarded and successful, there might have been also a more Noble and Instructive Moral drawn that way. I must confess if this be an Error, (as I perhaps it may,) it is a voluntary one ​and an Error of my Judgment: Since in the writing I actually made such a sort of an Objection to my self; and chose to wind up the story this way. Tragedies have been allow'd, I know, to be written both ways very beautifully. But since Terror and Pity are laid down for the Ends of Tragedy, by the great Master and Father of Criticism, I was always inclin'd to fancy, that the last and remaining Impressions, which ought to be left on the minds of an Audience, should proceed from one of these two. They should be struck with Terror in several parts of the Play, but always Conclude and go away with Pity, a sort of regret proceeding from good nature, which, tho an uneasiness, is not always disagreeable, to the person who feels it. It was this passion that the famous Mr Otway succeeded so well in touching, and must and will at all times affect people, who have any tenderness or humanity. If therefore I had sav'd Artaxerxes and Amestris, I believe (with submission to my Judges) I had destroy'd the greatest occasion for Compassion in the whole Play. Any body may perceive, that she is rais'd to some degrees of happiness, by hearing that her Father and Husband are living, (whom she had suppos'd dead,) and by seeing the Enemy and Persecuter of her Family dying at her feet, purposely, that the turn of her death may be more surprizing and pitiful. As for that part of the Objection, which says, that Innocent persons ought not to be shewn unfortunate; The success and general approbation, which many of the best Tragedies that have been writ, and which were built on that foundation, have met with, will be sufficient answer for me.

That which they call the Poetical Justice, is, I think, strictly observ'd, the two principal Contrivers of Evil, the Statesman and Priest, are punish'd with death; and the Queen is depos'd from her authority by her own Son; which, I suppose, will be allowed as the severest mortification that could happen to a woman of her Imperious temper.

If there can be any excuse for my Entertaining your Lordship with this Detail of Criticisms, it is, That I would have this first mark of the honour I have for your Lordship appear with as few faults as possible. Did not the prevailing Character of your Lordship's Excellent humanity and good nature encourage ​me, what ought I not to fear from the niceness of your Taste and Judgment? The delicacy of your reflexions may be very fatal to so rough a Draught as this is; but if I will believe, (as I am sure I ought to do) all men that I have heard speak of your Lordship, they bid me hope every thing from your Goodness. This is that I must sincerely own, which made me extremely Ambitious of your Lordship's Patronage for this Piece. I am but too sensible, that there are a multitude of faults in it; but since the good nature of the Town has cover'd, or not taken notice of 'em, I must have so much discretion, as not to look with an affected nicety into 'em my self. With all the Faults and Imperfections which it may have, I must own, I shall be yet very well satisfied with it, if it gives me an opportunity of reckoning my self from this time,