Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/76

28 that honour, in conjunction with some others who better 'deserved it. I hope you will not wonder, I am still desirous to have you think me your grateful and faithful servant; but I own, I have an ambition still farther, to have others think me so, which is the occasion I give your lordship the trouble of this. Poor Parnelle, before he died, left me the charge of publishing the few remains of his. I have a strong desire to make them, their author and their publisher, more considerable, by addressing and dedicating them all to you. There is a pleasure in bearing testimony to truth, and a vanity perhaps, which is at least as excusable as any vanity can be. I beg you, my lord, to allow me to gratify it in prefixing this paper of honest verses to the book. I send the book itself, which I dare say you'll receive more satisfaction in perusing, than you can from any thing written upon the subject of yourself. Therefore I am a good deal in doubt whether you will care for any such addition to it. All I shall say for it is, that it is the only dedication I ever writ, and shall be the only one, whether you accept of it or not, for I will not bow the knee to a less man than my Lord Oxford, and I expect to see no greater in my time. After all, if your lordship will tell my Lord Harley that I must not do this, you may depend upon a