grateful.

I am very near wishing that it were not so much my interest to be
your lordship's servant, that it might be more my merit; not that I
would avoid being obliged to you, but I would have my own choice to
run me into the debt: that I might have it to boast, I had
distinguished a man to whom I would be glad to be obliged, even
without the hopes of having it in my power ever to make him a
return.

It is impossible for me to come near your lordship in any kind and
not to receive some favour; and while in appearance I am only
making an acknowledgment (with the usual underhand dealing of the
world) I am at the same time insinuating my own interest. I cannot
give your lordship your due, without tacking a bill of my own
privileges. 'Tis true, if a man never committed a folly, he would
never stand in need of a protection. But then power would have
nothing to do, and good nature no occasion to show itself; and
where those qualities are, 'tis pity they should want objects to
shine upon. I must confess this is no reason why a man should do
an idle thing, nor indeed any good excuse for it when done; yet it
reconciles the uses of such authority and goodness to the
necessities of our follies, and is a sort of poetical logic, which
at this time I would make use of, to argue your lordship into a
protection of this play. It is the first offence I have committed
in this kind, or indeed, in any kind of poetry, though not the
first made public, and therefore I hope will the more easily be
pardoned. But had it been acted, when it was first written, more
might have been said in its behalf: ignorance of the town and
stage would then have been excuses in a young writer, which now