University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUE.

High labour'd lines you may expect from those,
Whose pleasure is their studies: Most here knows
This Author hunts, and hawks, and feeds his Deer,
Not some, but most fair days throughout the yeer.
Such rude dull heavy Scenes expect you then,
As after suppers vapours from his pen.
Would you not ask, Why then does he write Plays,
Since now great Wits strive for Dramatick bays?
Pardon what's past: That way now counted wit,
Although enjoin'd, he'l deal no more in it:
Since dying to the Stage, his last request
Is, that you would not like the worst Scenes best.
If this desire injurious seem to some,
I wonder not: Divers to Plays do come,
Not to be pleas'd, unless the Play be bad;
So what th'ingenious like, doth make them sad:
We tax not here their judgment or their wit,
But that so much ill nature's join'd with it.
Others there be, which like the Austrian race,
Wits empire tyes alone to those they grace:
Nay, so opinion'd of themselves they be,
They'l praise things most absurd; and when they see
Those whose simplicity admires their wit,
To do the same, they laugh at them and it.
'Tis not these Bugbears that do haunt the Stage,
Should fright an Author; since 'tis plain, this Age
Hath more clear Judgments then was ever known:
But most Apollo's beams break from the throne,
And with a double sweetness doth invite
All that have gifts in Verse or Prose, to write.
Which he would still, but that his period's past;
For sure you'l find this Play Worse then the last.