LONDON:
Printed for JACOB TONSON at Shakespear's Head
over-against Katharine-Street in the Strand.

MDCCXVII.

THE

State of Innocence,

AND

FALL of MAN.

AN

OPER A.

Written in Heroick VERSE.

--Utinam modò dicere poffem

Carmina digna Deá: Certe eft Dea Carmine digna.

Ovid. Met.

Printed in the YEAR MDCCXVII.

TO HER

ROYAL HIGHNESS,

THE

DUTCHESS.

MADAM,

MBITION is fo far from being a Vice in Poets, that 'tis almoft impoffible for them to fucceed without it. Imagination must be rais'd, by a Defire of Fame, to a Defire of Pleafing: And they whom, in all Ages Poets have endeavour'd moft to pleafe, have been the Beautiful and the Great. Beauty is their Deity to which they facrifice, and Greatness is their Guardian-Angel which protects them. Both thefe are fo eminently join'd in the Perfon of Your Royal Highness, that it were not eafie for any, but a Poet, to determine which of them out-shines the

A 4

other.