ABSTRACT
Extract from the Epistle Dedicatory of The Indian Emperour, or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards to the Duchess of Monmouth (12 October 1667): ‘Under your Patronage Montezuma hopes he is more safe than in his Native India. … His Story is, perhaps, the greatest which was ever represented in a Poem of this Nature; the Action of it including the Discovery and Conquest of a new World. In it I have neither wholly follow’d the Truth of the History, nor altogether left it: But have taken all the Liberty of a Poet, to add, alter, or diminish, as I thought might best conduce to the beautifying of my Work; it being not the bus’ness of a Poet to represent Historical Truth, but Probability. But I am not to make the Justification of this Poem, which I wholly leave to your Grace’s Mercy. ’Tis an irregular Piece, if compar’d with many of Comeille’s, and, if I may make a Judgment of it, written with more Flame than Art; in which it represents the Mind and Intention of the Author. … ’ (Dryden’s Comedies, Tragedies, and Operas (1701), i. 108.)
