Selden.

Our Author lived some time also with Sir Samuel Luke, who
was of an ancient family in Bedfordshire but, to his dishonour,
an eminent commander under the usurper Oliver Cromwell: and
then it was, as I am informed, he composed this loyal Poem.
For, though fate, more than choice, seems to have placed him in
the service of a Knight so notorious, both in his person and
politics, yet, by the rule of contraries, one may observe
throughout his whole Poem, that he was most orthodox, both in
his religion and loyalty. And I am the more induced to believe
he wrote it about that time, because he had then the opportunity
to converse with those living characters of rebellion, nonsense,
and hypocrisy, which he so livelily and pathetically exposes
throughout the whole work.

After the restoration of King Charles II. those who were at the
helm, minding money more than merit, our Author found that
verse in Juvenal to be exactly verified in himself:

Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat
Res angusta domi:
[They do not easily rise whose virtues are held back by the
straitened circumstances of their home]

And being endued with that innate modesty, which rarely finds
promotion in princes' courts. He became Secretary to Richard
Earl of Carbury, Lord President of the Principality of Wales,
who made him Steward of Ludlow-Castle, when the Court there
was revived. About this time he married one Mrs. Herbert, a