SOURCE: Centlivre, Susanna. “Epistle Dedicatory.” In The Busie Body. Los Angeles: Augustan Reprint Society, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1949.

In the following essay, originally published in the 1709 edition of The Busie Body, Centlivre seeks the patronage of Lord Sommers, a highly prominent Whig who had recently been made president of Queen Anne's Privy Council upon the Whigs' return to power in 1708.

To the Right Honourable John Lord Sommers, Lord-president of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy-council.

May it please Your Lordship,

As it's an Establish'd Custom in these latter Ages, for all Writers, particularly the Poetical, to shelter their Productions under the Protection of the most Distinguish'd, whose Approbation produces a kind of Inspiration, much superior to that which the Heathenish Poets pretended to derive from their Fictitious Apollo: So it was my Ambition to Address one of my weak Performances to Your Lordship, who, by Universal Consent, are...