University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUE.

Now Luck for us, and a kind hearty Pit;
For he who pleases, never failes of Wit:
Honour is yours:
And you, like Kings, at City Treats bestow it;
The Writer kneels, and is bid rise a Poet:
But you are fickle Sovereigns, to our Sorrow,
You dubb to day, and hang a man to morrow;
You cry the same Sense up, and down again,
Just like brass mony once a year in Spain:
Take you i'th' mood, what e'er base metal come,
You coin as fast as Groats at Bromingam:
Though 'tis no more like Sense in ancient Plays,
Than Rome's Religion like St. Peter's days.
In short, so swift your Judgments turn and wind,
You cast our fleetest Wits a mile behind.
'Twere well your Judgments but in Plays did range,
But ev'n your Follies and Debauches change
With such a Whirl, the Poets of your age
Are tyr'd, and cannot score 'em on the Stage,
Unless each Vice in short-hand they indite,
Ev'n as notcht Prentices whole Sermons write.
The heavy Hollanders no Vices know
But what they us'd a hundred years ago,
Like honest Plants, where they were stuck, they grow;
They cheat, but still from cheating Sires they come;
They drink, but they were christ'ned first in Mum.
Their patrimonial Sloth the Spaniards keep,
And Philip first taught Philip how to sleep.
The French and we still change, but here's the Curse,
They change for better, and we change for worse;
They take up our old trade of Conquering,
And we are taking theirs, to dance and sing:
Our Fathers did for change to France repair,
And they for change will try our English Air.
As Children, when they throw one Toy away,
Strait a more foolish Gugaw comes in play:
So we, grown penitent, on serious thinking,
Leave Whoring, and devoutly fall to Drinking.
Scowring the Watch grows out of fashion wit
Now we set up for Tilting in the Pit,
Where 'tis agreed by Bullies, chicken-hearted,
To fright the Ladies first, and then be parted.
A fair Attempt has twice or thrice been made,
To hire Night-murth'rers, and make Death a Trade.
When Murther's out, what Vice can we advance?
Unless the new found Pois'ning Trick of France:
And when their Art of Rats-bane we have got,
By way of thanks, we'll send 'em o'er our Plot.