The ready finger lays on every blot; [should not.
Knows what should justly please, and what
Nature herself lies open to your view;
You judge by her, what draught of her is true,
Where outlines false, and colours seem to faint,
Where bunglers daub, and where true poets
But, by the sacred genius of this place, [paint.
By every Muse, by each domestic grace,
Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well,
And, where you judge, presumes not to excel.
Our poets hither for adoption come,

As nations sued to be made free of Rome :
Not in the suffragating tribes to stand,
But in your utmost, last, provincial band.
If his ambition may those hopes pursue,
Who with religion loves your arts and you,
Oxford to him a dearer name shall be,
Than his own mother-university.
Thebes did his green, unknowing, youth en-
He chooses Athens in his riper age.

[gage;

We bring you change, to humour your disease,
Change for the worse has ever used to please:
Then, 't is the mode of France; without whose
rules

None must presume to set up here for fools.
In France, the oldest man is always young,
Sees operas daily, learns the tunes so long,
Till foot, hand, head, keep time with eve y song
Each sings his part, echoing from pit and box,
With his hoarse voice, half harmony, half pox.
Le plus grand roi du monde is always ringing,
They show themselves good subjects by their
On that condition, set up every throat; [singing:
You wigs may sing, for you have chang'd your
Cits and citesses raise a joyful strain, [note.
'T is a good omen to begin a reign;
Voices may help your charter to restoring,
And get by singing what you lost by roaring;

PROLOGUE TO ALBION AND
ALBANIUS.

FULL twenty years and more, our labouring
Has lost on this incorrigible age: [stage
Our poets, the John Ketches of the nation,
Have seem'd to lash ye, even to excoriation:
But still no sign remains; which plainly notes,
You bore like heroes, or you bribed like Oates.
What can we do, when mimicking a fop,
Like beating nut trees, makes a larger crop?
Faith, we'll e'en spare our pains! and, to con-
[you.
Will fairly leave you what your Maker meant
Satire was once your physic, wit your food;
One nourish'd not, and t'other drew no blood;
We now prescribe, like doctors in despair,
The diet your weak appetites can bear.
Since hearty beef and mutton will not do,
Here's julap-dance, ptisan of song and show:
Give you strong sense, the liquor is too heady;
You're come to farce,-that's asses' milk,

tent you,

already.

Some hopeful youths there are, of callow wit, Who one day may be men, if heaven think fit; Sound may serve such, ere they to sense are grown

Like leading-strings, till they can walk alone. But yet, to keep our friends in countenance, know,

The wise Italians first invented show;
Thence into France the noble pageant pass'd:
'T is England's credit to be cozen'd last. [o'er:
Freedom and zeal have chous'd you o'er and
Pray give us leave to bubble you once more;
You never were so cheaply fool'd before :

EPILOGUE TO ALBION AND ALBANIUS.

AFTER Our sop's fable shown to-day,
I come to give the moral of the play. [pace;
Feign'd Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier
But the last heat, Plain Dealing won the race:
Plain Dealing for a jewel has been known;
But ne'er till now the jewel of a crown. [vine,
When heaven made man, to show the work di-
Truth was his image, stamp'd upon the coin:
And when a king is to a god refined,
On all he says and does he stamps his mind :
This proves a soul without alloy, and pure;
Kings, like their gold, should every touch en-
dure.

To dare in fields is valour; but how few
Dare be so thoroughly valiant,—to be true!
The name of great let other kings affect:
He's great indeed, the prince that is direct.
His subjects know him now, and trust him more
Than all their kings, and all their laws before.
What safety could their public acts afford?
Those he can break; but cannot break his
So great a trust to him alone was due ; [word.
Well have they trusted whom so well they
knew.

The saint, who walk'd on waves, securely trod,
While he believed the beck'ning of his God;
But when his faith no longer bore him out,
Began to sink, as he began to doubt.
Let us our native character maintain ;
'T is of our growth, to be sincerely plain.
To excel in truth we loyally may strive,
Set privilege against prerogative:
He plights his faith, and we believe him just
His honour is to promise, ours to trust.

Thus Britain's basis on a word is laid, As by a word the world itself was made.

PROLOGUE TO ARVIRAGUS AND

PHILICIA.

REVIVED BY LODOWICK CARLELL, ESQ. SPOKEN-BY MR. HART.

WITH sickly actors and an old house too,
We're match'd with glorious theatres and new,
And with our alehouse scenes, and clothes bare
worn,

Can neither raise old plays, nor new adorn.
If all these ills could not undo us quite, [light;
A brisk French troop is grown your dear de-
Who with broad bloody bills call you each day,
To laugh and break your buttons at their play;
Or see some serious piece, which we presume
Is fallen from some incomparable plume;
And therefore, Messieurs, if you'll do us grace,
Send lackeys early to preserve your place.
We dare not on your privilege intrench,
Or ask you why you like them? they are
French.

Therefore some go with courtesy exceeding,
Neither to hear nor see, but show their breed-
Each lady striving to out-laugh the rest; [ing:
To make it seem they understood the jest.
Their countrymen come in, and nothing pay,
To teach us English where to clap the play:
Civil, egad! our hospitable land

Bears all the charge, for them to understand: Meantime we languish, and neglected lie, Like wives, while you keep better company; And wish for your own sakes, without a satire, You'd less good breeding, or had more good

nature.

Suppose our poet was your foe before,
Yet now, the business of the field is o'er;
'T is time to let your civil wars alone,
When troops are into winter quarters gone.
Jove was alike to Latian and to Phrygian;
And you well know, a play 's of no religion.
Take good advice, and please yourselves this
day:

No matter from what hands you have the play.
Among good fellows every health will pass,
That serves to carry round another glass :
When with full bowls of Burgundy you dine,
You grant him still Most Christian in his wine.
Though at the mighty monarch you repine,

Thus far the poet; but his brains grow addle, And all the rest is purely from this noddle. Prefer petitions, and your grace implore; You have seen young ladies at the senate door However grave the legislators were, Their cause went ne'er the worse for being

fair.

Reasons as weak as theirs, perhaps, I bring;
But I could bribe you with as good a thing.
I heard him make advances of good nature;
That he, for once, would sheath his cutting sa
tire.

Sign but his peace, he vows he 'll ne'er again
The sacred names of fops and beaus profane.
Strike up the bargain quickly; for I swear,
Be not too hard no him with statutes neither,
As times go now, he offers very fair.
Be kind; and do not set your teeth together,
To stretch the laws, as cobblers do their leather.
Horses by Papists are not to be ridden,
But sure the Muses' horse was ne'er for

bidden;

For in no rate book it was ever found That Pegasus was valued at five pound; And let him pay his taxes out in writing. Fine him to daily drudging and inditing:

A play, which, like a perspective set right,
Presents our vast expenses close to sight;
But turn the tube, and there we sadly view
Our distant gains; and those uncertain too:
A sweeping tax, which on ourselves we raise,
And all, like you, in hopes of better days.
When will our losses warn us to be wise?
Our wealth decreases, and our charges rise.
Money, the sweet allurer of our hopes,
Ebbs out in oceans, and comes in by drops.
We raise new objects to provoke delight;
But you grow sated ere the second sight.
False men, e'en so you serve your mistresses:
They rise three stories in their towering dress;
And, after all, you love not long enough
To pay the rigging, ere you leave them off.
Never content with what you had before,
But true to change, and Englishmen all o'er.
Now honour calls you hence; and all your care
Is to provide the horrid pomp of war.

In plume and scarf, jack-boots, and Bilbo blade,
Your silver goes, that should support our trade.
Go, unkind heroes, leave our stage to mourn;
Till rich from vanquish'd rebels you return;
And the fat spoils of Teague in triumph draw,
His firkin butter, and his usquebaugh.
Go, conquerors of your male and female foes;
Men without hearts, and women without hose.
Each bring his love a Bogland captive home;
Such
proper pages will long trains become ;
With copper collars, and with brawny backs,
Quite to put down the fashion of our blacks.
Then shall the pious Muses pay their vows,
And furnish all their laurels for your brows;
Their tuneful voice shall raise for your delight;
We want not poets fit to sing your flights.
But you, bright beauties, for whose only sake
Those doughty knights such dangers undertake,
When they with happy gales are gone away,
With your propitious presence grace our play;
And with a sigh their empty seats survey:
Then think, on that bare bench my servant sat;
I see him ogle still, and hear him chat;
Selling facetious bargains, and propounding
That witty recreation, call'd dumfounding.
Their loss with patience we will try to bear;
And would do more, to see you often here :
That our dead stage, reviv'd by your fair eyes
Under a female regency may rise.

secuting the war in Ireland, which is alluded to in these lines:

'Till rich from vanquish'd rebels you return; And the fat spoils of Teague in triumph draw, His firkin butter, and his usquebaugh.'

This prologue,' says Colley Cibber in his Apology, had some familiar metaphorical sneers at the Revolution itself; and as the poetry of it was good, the offence of it was less pardonable.

Go conquerors of your male and female foes. Men without hearts,and women without hose.' D.

So far I'm sure 't is rhyme-that needs no granting:

And, if my verses' feet stumble-you see my own are wanting.

Our young poet has brought a piece of work,
In which, though much of art there does not lurk,
It may hold out three days-and that's as long as
Cork.
[show not)

But, for this play-(which till I have done, we
What may be its fortune-by the Lord-I know
This I dare swear, no malice here is writ: [not.
"T is innocent of all things; e'en of wit.
He's no high-flyer; he makes no skyrockets,
His squibs are only levell'd at your pockets.
And if his crackers light among your pelf,
You are blown up ; if not, then he's blown up
himself.
[ter'd madness:
By this time, I'm something recover'd of my flus-
And now a word or two in sober sadness.

How's this, you cry? an actor write? we know it;
But Shakespeare was an actor and a poet.
Has not great Jonson's learning often fail'd:
But Shakespeare's greater genius still prevail'd.
Have not some writing actors, in this age,
Deserv'd and found success upon the stage?
To tell the truth, when our old wits are tir'd,
Not one of us but means to be inspir'd.
Let your kind presence grace our homely cheer;
Peace and the butt is all our business here:
So much for that; and the devil take small beer.

PROLOGUE TO KING ARTHUR,

SPOKEN BY MR. BETTERTON.

SURE there's a dearth of wit in this dull town,
When silly plays so savourily go down;
As when clipt money passes, 't is a sign
A nation is not over-stock'd with coin.
Happy is he who, in his own defence,
Can write just level to your humble sense;
Who higher than your pitch can never go;
And, doubtless, he must creep, who writes
below.

So have I seen, in hall of knight, or lord,
A weak arm throw on a long shovel-board;
He barely lays his piece, bar rubs and knocks
Secur'd by weakness not to reach the box.
A feeble poet will his business do,
Who, straining all he can, comes up to you:
For, if you like yourselves, you like him too.
An ape his own dear image will embrace ;
An ugly beau adores a hatchet face :
So, some of you, on pure instinct of nature,
Are led, by kind, to admire your fellow creature.
In fear of which, our house has sent this day,
To insure our new-built vessel, call'd a play;
No sooner nam'd than one cries out, These
stagers
[wagers.
Come in good time, to make more work for
The town divides, if it will take or no ;
The courtiers bet, the cits, the merchants too;
A sign they have but little else to do. [wise,
Bets, at the first, were fool-traps; where the
Like spiders, lay in ambush for the flies:
But now they're grown a common trade for all,
And actions by the new-book rise and fall;
Wits, cheats, and fops, are free of wager-hall.
One policy as far as Lyons carries ;
Another, nearer home, sets up for Paris.
Our bets, at last, would e'en to Rome extend,
But that the pope has prov'd our trusty friend..
Indeed, it were a bargain worth our money,
Could we insure another Ottoboni.
Among the rest there are a sharping set,
That pray for us, and yet against us bet.

EPILOGUE TO HENRY II.

BY MR. MOUNTFORT, 1693. SPOKEN BY MRS,

BRA CEGIRDLE.

THUS you the sad catastrophe have seen,
Occasion'd by a mistress and a queen. [say
Queen Eleanor the proud was French, they
But English manufacture got the day.
Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver:
Fair Rosamond was but her Nom de guerre.
Now tell me, gallants, would you lead your life
With such a mistress, or with such a wife?
If one must be your choice, which d'ye approve
The curtain lecture, or the curtain love?
Would ye be godly with perpetual, strife,
Still drudging on with homely Joan your wife
Or take your pleasure in a wicked way,
Like honest loving Harry in the play?
I guess your minds: the mistress would be
taken,*

And nauseous matrimony sent a packing.
The devil's in you all; mankind's a rogue;
You love the bride, but you detest the clog.
After a year, poor spouse is left i' th' lurch,
And you, like Haynes, return to mother-church
Or, if the name of Church comes cross your
mind,

Chapels of ease behind our scenes you find.
The playhouse is a kind of market place;
One chaffers for a voice, another for a face:
Nay, some of you, I dare not say how many,
Would buy of me a pen'worth for your penny.
E'en this poor face, which with my fan I hide,
Would make a shift my portion to provide,
With some small perquisites I have beside.

—the mistress would be taken,

And nauseous matrimony sent a packing.] The incident of Lady Easy's throwing her hand kerchief over Sir Charles's head, whilst he was sleeping, seems to have been taken from the Memoirs of Bassompiere, concerning a Count d'Orge villier and his mistress. tom. ii. p. 6. 1728. at Am sterdam. Dr. J. W.