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A country lip may have the velvet touch;
Though she's no lady, you may think her such:
A strong imagination may do much.
But you, loud sirs, who through your curls look big,
Critics in plume and white vallancy wig,
Who lolling on our foremost benches sit,
And still charge first, the true forlorn of wit;
Whose favours, like the Sun, warm where you roll,
Yet you, like him, have neither heat nor soul;
So may your hats your foretops never press,
Untouch'd your ribbons, sacred be your dress;
So may you slowly to old age advance,
And have th' excuse of youth for ignorance:
So may Fop-corner full of noise remain,
And drive far off the dull attentive train;
So may your midnight scowerings happy prove,
And morning batteries force your way to love;
So may not France your warlike hands recall,
But leave you by each other's swords to fall:
As you come here to ruffle vizard punk,
When sober, rail, and roar when you are drunk.
But to the wits we can some merit plead,
And urge what by themselves has oft been said:
Our house relieves the ladies from the frights
Of ill-pav'd streets, and long dark winter nights;
The Flanders horses from a cold bleak road,
Where bears in furs dare scarcely look abroad;
The audience from worn plays and fustian stuff,
Of rhyme, more nauseous than three boys in buff.
Though in their house the poets' heads appear,
We hope we may presume their wits are here.
The best which they reserv'd they now will play,
For, like kind cuckolds, though we've not the way
To please, we 'll find you abler men who may.
If they should fail, for last recruits we breed
A troop of frisking Mounsieurs to succeed:
You know the French sure cards at time of need.

IV. PROLOGUE

TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1674.
SPOKEN BY MR. HART.

Poars, your subjects, have their parts assign'd
T'unbend, and to divert their sovereign's mind:
When tir'd with following Nature, you think fit
To seek repose in the cool shades of Wit,
And, from the sweet retreat, with joy survey
What rests, and what is conquer'd, of the way.
Here, free yourselves from envy, care, and strife,
You view the various turns of human life:
Safe in our scene, through dangerous courts you go,
And, undebauch'd, the vice of cities know.
Your theories are here to practice brought,
As in mechanic operations wrought;
And man, the little world, before you set,
As once the sphere of crystal show'd the great.
Blest sure are you above all mortal kind,
If to your fortunes you can suit your mind:
Content to see, and shun, those ills we show,
And crimes on theatres alone to know.
With joy we bring what our dead authors writ,
And beg from you the value of their wit: [claim,
That Shakspeare's, Fletcher's, and great Jonson's
May be renew'd from those who gave them fame.
None of our living poets dare appear;
For Muses so severe are worshipp'd here,

That, conscious of their faults, they shun the eye,
And, as profane, from sacred places fly,
Rather than see th' offended God, and die.
We bring no imperfections, but our own;
Such faults as made are by the makers shown:
And you have been so kind, that we may boast,
The greatest judges still can pardon most.
Poets must stoop, when they would please our pit,
Debas'd even to the level of their wit;

Disdaining that, which yet they know will take,
Hating themselves what their applause must make.
But when to praise from you they would aspire,
Though they like eagles mount, your Jove is higher.
So far your knowledge all their power transcends,
As what should be beyond what is extends.

V.

PLOLOGUE TO CIRCE.

[BY DR. DAVENANT, 1675.]

WERE you but half so wise as you 're severe,
Our youthful poet should not need to fear:
To his green years your censures you would suit,
Not blast the blossom, but expect the fruit.
The sex, that best does pleasure understand,
Will always choose to err on t' other hand:
They check not him that's awkward in delight,
But clap the young rogue's cheek, and set him right
Thus hearten'd well, and flesh'd upon his prey,
The youth may prove a man another day.
Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight,
Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces write:
But hopp'd about, and short excursions made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid,
And each was guilty of some slighted maid.
Shakspeare's own Muse her Pericles first bore;
The prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor:
'Tis miracle to see a first good play;

All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas-day.
A slender poet must have time to grow,
And spread and burnish as his brothers do.
Who still looks lean, sure with some pox is curst:
But no man can be Falstaff-fat at first.
Then damn not, but indulge his rude essays,
Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise,
That he may get more bulk before he dies:
He's not yet fed enough for sacrifice.
Perhaps, if now your grace you will not grudge,
He may grow up to write, and you to judge.

VI. EPILOGUE

INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN BY THE LADY HEN.
MAR. WENTWORTH, WHEN CALISTO WAS ACTED AT
COURT.

As Jupiter I made my court in vain;
I'll now assume my native shape again.
I'm weary to be so unkindly us'd,
And would not be a god to be refus'd.
State grows uneasy when it hinders love;
A glorious burthen, which the wise remove.
Now as a nymph I need not sue, nor try
The force of any lightning but the eye.
Beauty and youth more than a god command;
No Jove could e'er the force of these withstand.

'Tis here that sovereign power admits dispute;
Beauty sometimes is justly absolute.
Our sullen Catos, whatsoe'er they say,
Ev'n while they frown and dictate laws, obey.
You, mighty sir, our bonds more easy make,
And gracefully, what all must suffer, take:
Above those forms the grave affect to wear;
For 'tis not to be wise to be severe.
True wisdom may some gallantry admit,
And soften business with the charms of wit.

These peaceful triumphs with your cares you bought,
And from the midst of fighting nations brought.
You only hear it thunder from afar,

And sit in peace the arbiter of war:

VIII.

EPILOGUE

TO MITHRIDATES, KING OF PONTUS.
[BY MR. N. LEE, 1678.]

YOU'VE seen a pair of faithful lovers die:
And much you care; for most of you will cry,
'Twas a just judgment on their constancy.
For, Heaven be thank'd, we live in such an age,
When no man dies for love, but on the stage:
And ev'n those martyrs are but rare in plays;
A cursed sign how much true faith decays.

Peace, the loath'd manna, which hot brains de- Love is no more a violent desire;

spise,

You knew its worth, and made it early prize :
And in its happy leisure sit and see
The promises of more felicity:

Two glorious nymphs of your own godlike line,
Whose morning rays like noontide strike and
shine:

Whom you to suppliant monarchs shall dispose,
To bind your friends, and to disarm your foes,

VII.

EPILOGUE

TO THE MAN OF MODE; OR, SIR FOPLING FLUTTER.
[BY SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE, 1676.]

Most modern wits such monstrous fools have shown,
They seem not of Heaven's making, but their own.
Those nauseous barlequins in farce may pass ;
But there goes more to a substantial ass:
Something of man must be expos'd to view,
That, gallants, they may more resemble you.
Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ,

The ladies would mistake him for a wit;

"Tis a mere metaphor, a painted fire.
In all our sex, the name examin'd well,
'Tis pride to gain, and vanity to tell.
In woman, 'tis of subtle interest made:
Curse on the punk that made it first a trade!
She first did Wit's prerogative remove,
And made a fool presume to prate of love.
Let honour and preferment go for gold;
But glorious beauty is not to be sold:
Or, if it be, 'tis at a rate so high,
That nothing but adoring it should buy.
Yet the rich cullies may their boasting spare;
They purchase but sophisticated ware.
"Tis prodigality that buys deceit,

Where both the giver and the taker cheat.
Men but refine on the old half-crown way:
And women fight, like Swissers, for their pay.

IX.

PROLOGUE TO CESAR BORGIA,
[BY MR. N. LEE, 1680.]

TH' unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen,

And, when he sings, talks loud, and cocks, would Lives not to please himself, but other men;

cry,

"I vow, methinks, he 's pretty company:
So brisk, so gay, so travell'd, so refin'd,
As he took pains to graff upon his kind."
True fops help Nature's work, and go to school,
To file and finish God Almighty's fool.
Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him can call;
He's knight o' th' shire, and represents you all.
From each he meets he culls whate'er he can;
Legion's his name, a people in a man.
His bulky folly gathers as it goes,
And, rolling o'er you, like a snowball grows.
His various modes from various fathers follow;
One taught the toss, and one the new French
wallow.

His sword-knot this, his cravat that design'd;
And this, the yard-long snake he twirls behind.
From one the sacred periwig he gain'd,
Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profan'd.
Another's diving bow he did adore,

Which, with a shog, casts all the hair before,
Till he with full decorum brings it back,
And rises with a water-spaniel shake.
As for his songs, the ladies' dear delight,
These sure he took from most of you who write.
Yet every man is safe from what he fear'd;
For no one fool is hunted from the herd.

Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
What praise soe'er the poetry deserve,
Yet every fool can bid the poet starve.
That fumbling letcher to revenge is bent,
Because he thinks himself or whore is meant:
Name but a cuckold, all the city swarms;
From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms:
Were there no fear of Antichrist or France,
In the blest time poor poets live by chance.
Either you come not here, or, as you grace
Some old acquaintance, drop into the place,
Careless and qualmish with a yawning face:
You sleep o'er wit, and by my troth you may;
Most of your talents lie another way.
You love to hear of some prodigious tale,
The bell that toll'd alone, or Irish whale.
News is your food, and you enough provide,
Both for yourselves, and all the world beside.
One theatre there is of vast resort,

Which whilome of Requests was call'd the Court;
But now the great Exchange of News 'tis hight,
And full of hum and buz from noon till night.
Up stairs and down you run, as for a race,
And each man wears three nations in his face.
So big you look, though claret you retrench,
That, arm'd with bottled ale, you huff the French.

But all your entertainment still is fed
By villains in your own dull island bred.
Would you return to us, we dare engage
To show you better rogues upon the stage.
You know no poison but plain ratsbane here;
Death's more refin'd, and better bred elsewhere.
They have a civil way in Italy

By smelling a perfume to make you die;

A trick would make you lay your snuff-box by. Murder 's a trade, so known and practis'd there, That 'tis infallible as is the chair.

But, mark their feast, you shall behold such pranks; The pope says grace, but 'tis the Devil gives thanks.

X. PROLOGUE

TO SOPHONISBA, AT OXFORD, 1680.

THESPIS, the first professor of our art,
At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,
Dicitur et plaustris vexisse Poemata Thespis.
But Eschylus, says Horace in some page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the stage:
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport
Of tossing poets in a tennis-court.
But 'tis the talent of our English nation,
Still to be plotting some new reformation:
And few years hence, if anarchy goes on,
Jack Presbyter shall here erect his throne,
Knock out a tub with preaching once a day,
And every prayer be longer than a play.
Then all your heathen wits shall go to pot,
For disbelieving of a Popish-plot:
Your poets shall be us'd like infidels,
And worst the author of the Oxford bells:
Nor should we 'scape the sentence, to depart,
Ev'n in our first original, a cart.

No zealous brother there would want a stone,
To maul us cardinals, and pelt pope Joan:
Religion, learning, wit, would be supprest,
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast:
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down,
As chief supporters of the triple crown;
And Aristotle 's for destruction ripe;
Some say, he call'd the soul an organ-pipe,
Which, by some little help of derivation,
Shall then be prov'd a pipe of inspiration.

Noise, madness, all unreasonable things,
That strike at sense, as rebels do at kings.
The style of forty-one our poets write,
And you are grown to judge like forty-eight.
Such censures our mistaking audience make,
That 'tis almost grown scandalous to take.
They talk of fevers that infect the brains;
But nonsense is the new disease that reigns.
Weak stomachs, with a long disease opprest,
Cannot the cordials of strong wit digest.
Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye choose,
Decoctions of a barley-water Muse:

A meal of tragedy would make you sick,
Unless it were a very tender chick.

Some scenes in sippets would be worth our time;
Those would go down; some love that 's poach'd in
If these should fail-

[rhyme;

We must lie down, and, after all our cost,
Keep holiday, like watermen in frost;
While you turn players on the world's great stage,
And act yourselves the farce of your own age.

XII. EPILOGUE

TO A TRAGEDY CALLED TAMERLANE.

[BY MR. SAUNDERS.]

LADIES, the beardless author of this day
Commends to you the fortune of his play.
A woman wit has often grac'd the stage;
But he's the first boy-poet of our age.
Early as is the year his fancies blow,
Like young Narcissus peeping through the snow.
Thus Cowley blossom'd soon, yet flourish'd long;
This is as forward, and may prove as strong.
Youth with the fair should always favour find,
Or we are damn'd dissemblers of our kind.
What 's all this love they put into our parts?
'Tis but the pit-a-pat of two young hearts.
Should hag and grey-beard make such tender moan,
Faith, you'd ev'n trust them to themselves alone,
And cry, "Let's go, here 's nothing to be done."
Since love 's our business, as 'tis your delight,
The young, who best can practise, best can write.
What though he be not come to his full power,
He 's mending and improving every hour.
You, sly she-jockies of the box and pit,
Are pleas'd to find a hot unbroken wit:
By management he may in time be made,
But there's no hopes of an old batter'd jade;
Faint and unnerv'd he runs into a sweat,
And always fails you at the second heat.

XI.

A PROLOGUE.

IF yet there be a few that take delight
In that which reasonable men should write;
To them alone we dedicate this night.
The rest may satisfy their curious itch
With city gazettes, or some factious speech,
Or whate'er libel, for the public good,
Stirs up the shrovetide crew to fire and blood.
Remove your benches, you apostate pit,
A1 take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the rope,
Or see what 's worse, the Devil and the Pope.
The plays that take on our corrupted stage,
Methinks, resemble the distracted age;

XIII. PROLOGUE

TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1681. THE fam'd Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance Orlando, and the Paladins of France, Records, that, when our wit and sense is flown, 'Tis lodg'd within the circle of the Moon, In earthen jars, which one, who thither soar'd, Set to his nose, snuff'd up, and was restor'd. Whate'er the story be, the moral 's true; The wit we lost in town, we find in you.

Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
And fill their windy heads with sober sense.
When London votes with Southwark's disagree,
Here may they find their long-lost loyalty.
Here busy senates, to th' old cause inclin'd,
May snuff the votes their fellows left behind:
Your country neighbours, when their grain grows
May come, and find their last provision here: [dear,
Whereas we cannot much lament our loss,
Who neither carry'd back, nor brought one cross.
We look'd what representatives would bring;
But they help'd.us, just as they did the king.
Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth
The Sibyls' books to those who know their worth;
And though the first was sacrific'd before,
These volumes doubly will the price restore.
Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prescription you are kind.
He, whose undaunted Muse, with loyal rage,
Has never spar'd the vices of the age,
Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
Is forc'd to turn his satire into praise.

XIV. PROLOGUE

TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THeatre, after HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND, 1682.

IN those cold regions which no summers cheer,
Where brooding darkness covers half the year,
To hollow caves the shivering natives go;
Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of snow.
But when the tedious twilight wears away,
And stars grow paler at th' approach of day,
The longing crowds to frozen mountains run;
Happy who first can see the glimmering Sun:
The surly savage offspring disappear,
And curse the bright successor of the year.
Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence,
White foxes stay, with seeming innocence:
That crafty kind with daylight can dispense.
Still we are throng'd so full with Reynard's race,
That loyal subjects scarce can find a place:
Thus modest Truth is cast behind the crowd:
Truth speaks too low; Hypocrisy too loud.
Let them be first to flatter in success;
Duty can stay, but Guilt has need to press;
Once, when true zeal the sons of God did call,
To make their solemn show at Heaven's Whitehall,
The fawning Devil appear'd among the rest,
And made as good a courtier as the best.
The friends of Job, who rail'd at him before,
Came cap in hand when he had three times more.
Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true;
Kings can forgive, if rebels can but sue;
A tyrant's power in rigour is exprest;
The father yearns in the true prince's breast.
We grant, an o'ergrown Whig no grace can mend;
But most are babes, that know not they offend.
The crowd, to restless motion still inclin'd,
Are clouds, that tack according to the wind.
Driven by their chiefs they storms of hailstones pour;
Then mourn, and soften to a silent shower.
O welcome to this much offending land,
The prince that brings forgiveness in his hand!
Thus angels on glad messages appear:
Their first salute commands us not to fear:

Thus Heaven, that could constrain us to obey,
(With reverence if we might presume to say)
Seems to relax the rights of sovereign sway:
Permits to man the choice of good and ill,
And makes us happy by our own free will.

XV.

PROLOGUE TO THE EARL OF ESSEX. [BY MR. J. BANKS, 1682.]

SPOKEN TO THE KING AND QUEEN AT THEIR COMING TO THE HOUSE.

WHEN first the ark was landed on the shore,
And Heaven had vow'd to curse the ground no more;
When tops of hills the longing patriarch saw,
And the new scene of Earth began to draw;
The dove was sent to view the waves' decrease,
And first brought back to man the pledge of peace.
'Tis needless to apply, when those appear,
Who bring the olive, and who plant it here.
We have before our eyes the royal dove,
Still innocent as harbinger of love:
The ark is open'd to dismiss the train,
And people with a better race the plain.
Tell me, ye powers, why should vain man pursue,
With endless toil, each object that is new,
And for the seeming substance leave the true?
Why should he quit for hopes his certain good,
And loath the manna of his daily food?
Must England still the scene of changes be,
Tost and tempestuous, like our ambient sea?
Must still our weather and our wills agree?
Without our blood our liberties we have:
Who that is free would fight to be a slave?
Or, what can wars to after-times assure,
Of which our present age is not secure?
All that our monarch would for us ordain,
Is but t' enjoy the blessings of his reign.
Our land 's an Eden, and the main 's our fence,
While we preserve our state of innocence:
That lost, then beasts their brutal force employ,
And first their lord, and then themselves destroy.
What civil broils have cost, we know too well;
Oh! let it be enough that once we fell!
And every heart conspire, and every tongue,
Still to have such a king, and this king long.

XVI.

AN EPILOGUE

FOR THE KING'S HOUSE.

WE act by fits and starts, like drowning men,
But just peep up, and then pop down again.
Let those who call us wicked change their sense;
For never men liv'd more on Providence.
Not lottery cavaliers are half so poor,
Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore.
Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents
Of the three last ungiving parliaments:
So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine,
He might have spar'd his dream of seven lean kine,
And chang'd his vision for the Muses nine.
The comet, that, they say, portends a dearth,
Was but a vapour drawn from play-house earth:

Pent there since our last fire, and, Lilly says,
Foreshows our change of state, and thin third days.
"Tis not our want of wit that keeps us poor;
For then the printer's press would suffer more.
Their pamphleteers each day their venom spit;
They thrive by treason, and we starve by wit.
Confess the truth, which of you has not laid
Four farthings out to buy the Hatfield Maid?
Or, which is duller yet, and more would spite us,
Democritus's wars with Heraclitus?
Such are the authors, who have run us down,
And exercis'd you critics of the town.

Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhymes,
Y' abuse yourselves more dully than the times.
Scandal, the glory of the English nation,
Is worn to rags and scribbled out of fashion.
Such harmless thrusts, as if, like fencers wise,
They had agreed their play before their prize.
Faith, they may hang their harps upon the willows;
'Tis just like children when they box with pillows.
Then put an end to civil wars for shame;
Let each knight-errant, who has wrong'd a dame,
Throw down his pen, and give her, as he can,
The satisfaction of a gentleman.

The word is given, and with a loud huzza
The mitred moppet from his chair they draw:
On the slain corpse contending nations fall:
Alas! what's one poor pope among them all
He burns: now all true hearts your triumphs
ring:

And next, for fashion, cry, "God save the king!"!
A needful cry in midst of such alarms,
When forty thousand men are up in arms.
But after he 's once saved, to make amends,
In each succeeding health they damn his friends:
So God begins, but still the Devil ends.
What if some one, inspir'd with zeal, should call,
Come, let's go cry, "God save him at Whitehall?”
His best friends would not like this over care,
Or think him e'er the safer for this prayer.
Five praying saints are by an act allow'd;
But not the whole church-militant in crowd.
Yet, should Heaven all the true petitions drain
Of Presbyterians, who would kings maintain,
Of forty thousand, five would scarce remain.

XVII.

PROLOGUE

TO THE LOYAL BROTHER; OR, THE PERSIAN PRINCE. [BY MR. SOUTHERne, 1682.]

POETS, like lawful monarchs, rul'd the stage,
Till critics, like damn'd Whigs, debauch'd our age.
Mark how they jump: critics would regulate
Our theatres, and Whigs reform our state:

Both pretend love, and both (plague rot them!)

hate.

The critic humbly seems advice to bring;
The fawning Whig petitions to the king:
But one's advice into a satire slides;
T'other's petition a remonstrance hides.
These will no taxes give, and those no pence;
Critics would starve the poet, Whigs the prince.
The critic all our troops of friends discards ;
Just so the Whig would fain pull down the guards.
Guards are illegal, that drive foes away,
As watchful shepherds that fright beasts of prey.
Kings, who disband such needless aids as these,
Are safe-as long as e'er their subjects please:
And that would be till next queen Bess's night:
Which thus grave penny chroniclers indite.
Sir Edmundbury first, in woful wise,

Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes.
There's not a butcher's wife but dribs her part,
And pities the poor pageant from her heart;
Who, to provoke revenge, rides round the fire,
And, with a civil congé, does retire:
But guiltless blood to ground must never fall;
There's Antichrist behind, to pay for all.
The punk of Babylon in pomp appears,
A lewd old gentleman of seventy years:
Whose age in vain our mercy would implore;
For few take pity on an old cast-whore.

XVIII.

EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.

A VIRGIN poet was serv'd up to day,
Who, till this hour, ne'er cackled for a play.
He's neither yet a Whig nor Tory boy:
But, like a girl whom several would enjoy,

Begs leave to make the best of his own natural

toy.

Were I to play my callow author's game,
The king's house would instruct me by the name.
There's loyalty to one; I wish no more:

A commonwealth sounds like a common whore.
Let husband or gallant be what they will,
One part of woman is true Tory still.
If any factious spirit should rebel,

Our sex, with ease, can every rising quell.
Then, as you hope we should your failings hide,
An honest jury for our play provide.
Whigs at their poets never take offence;
They save dull culprits who have murder'd sense.
Though nonsense is a nauseous heavy mass,
The vehicle call'd Faction makes it pass.
Faction in play 's the commonwealth-man's bribe;
The leaden farthing of the canting tribe:
Though void in payment laws and statutes make it,
The neighbourhood, that knows the man, will
take it.

'Tis Faction buys the votes of half the pit;
Their's is the pension-parliament of wit.
In city clubs their venom let them vent;
For there 'tis safe in its own element.
Here, where their madness can have no pretence,
Let them forget themselves an hour of sense.
In one poor isle, why should two factions be?
Small difference in your vices I can see:
In drink and drabs both sides too well agree.
Would there were more preferments in the land:
If places fell, the party could not stand:

Of this damn'd grievance every Whig complains:
They grunt like hogs till they have got their grains,

The Devil, who brought him to the shame, takes Mean time you see what trade our plots advance;

part;

Sits cheek by jowl, in black, to cheer his heart;

Like thief and parson in a Tyburn-cart.

We send each year good money into France; And they that know what merchandize we need, Send o'er true Protestants to mend our breed.

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