University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUES AND EPILOGUES.

PROLOGUE SPOKEN THE FIRST DAY OF THE KING'S HOUSE ACTING AFTER THE FIRE.

So shipwracked passengers escape to land,
So look they, when on the bare beach they stand,
Dropping and cold, and their first fear scarce o'er,
Expecting famine on a desert shore.
From that hard climate we must wait for bread,
Whence even the natives, forced by hunger, fled.
Our stage does human chance present to view,
But ne'er before was seen so sadly true:
You are changed too, and your pretence to see
Is but a nobler name for charity.
Your own provisions furnish out our feasts,
While you, the founders, make yourselves the guests.
Of all mankind beside, fate had some care,
But for poor Wit no portion did prepare,
'Tis left a rent-charge to the brave and fair.
You cherished it, and now its fall you mourn,
Which blind unmannered zealots make their scorn,
Who think that fire a judgment on the stage,
Which spared not temples in its furious rage.
But as our new-built city rises higher,
So from old theatres may new aspire,
Since fate contrives magnificence by fire.
Our great metropolis does far surpass
Whate'er is now, and equals all that was:
Our wit as far does foreign wit excel,
And, like a king, should in a palace dwell.
But we with golden hopes are vainly fed
Talk high, and entertain you in a shed:
Your presence here, for which we humbly sue
Will grace old theatres, and build up new.

PROLOGUE FOR THE WOMEN, WHEN THEY ACTED AT THE OLD THEATRE, LINCOLN'S-INN-FIELDS.

Were none of you, gallants, e'er driven so hard,
As when the poor kind soul was under guard,
And could not do 't at home, in some by-street
To take a lodging, and in private meet?
Such is our case; we can't appoint our house,
The lovers' old and wonted rendezvous,
But hither to this trusty nook remove;
The worse the lodging is, the more the love.
For much good pastime, many a dear sweet hug,
Is stolen in garrets, on the humble rug.
Here's good accommodation in the pit;
The grave demurely in the midst may sit,
And so the hot Burgundian on the side,
Ply vizard mask, and o'er the benches stride:
Here are convenient upper boxes too,
For those that make the most triumphant show;
All, that keep coaches, must not sit below.
There, gallants, you betwixt the acts retire,
And, at dull plays, have something to admire:
We, who look up, can your addresses mark,
And see the creatures coupled in the ark:
So we expect the lovers, braves, and wits;
The gaudy house with scenes will serve for cits.

PROLOGUE SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW HOUSE, March 26, 1674.

A plain-built house, after so long a stay,
Will send you half unsatisfied away;
When, fallen from your expected pomp, you find
A bare convenience only is designed.
You, who each day can theatres behold,
Like Nero's palace, shining all with gold,
Our mean ungilded stage will scorn, we fear,
And, for the homely room, disdain the cheer.
Yet now cheap druggets to a mode are grown,
And a plain suit, since we can make but one,
Is better than to be by tarnished gawdry known.
They, who are by your favours wealthy made,
With mighty sums may carry on the trade;
We, broken bankers, half destroyed by fire,
With our small stock to humble roofs retire;
Pity our loss, while you their pomp admire.
For fame and honour we no longer strive;
We yield in both, and only beg—to live;
Unable to support their vast expense,
Who build and treat with such magnificence,
That, like the ambitious monarchs of the age,
They give the law to our provincial stage.
Great neighbours enviously promote excess,
While they impose their splendour on the less;
But only fools, and they of vast estate,
The extremity of modes will imitate,
The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat.
Yet if some pride with want may be allowed,
We in our plainness may be justly proud;
Our Royal Master willed it should be so;
Whate 'er he's pleased to own, can need no show:
That sacred name gives ornament and grace,
And, like his stamp, makes basest metal pass.
'Twere folly now a stately pile to raise,
To build a playhouse while you throw down plays;
While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign,
And for the pencil you the pen disdain;
While troops of famished Frenchmen hither drive,
And laugh at those upon whose alms they live:
Old English authors vanish, and give place
To these new conquerors of the Norman race.
More tamely than your fathers you submit;
You're now grown vassals to them in your wit.
Mark, when they play, how our fine fops advance
The mighty merits of their men of France,
Keep time, cry Ben! and humour the cadence.
Well, please yourselves; but sure 'tis understood,
That French machines have ne'er done England good.
I would not prophesy our house's fate;
But while vain shows and scenes you overrate,
'Tis to be feared—
That, as a fire the former house o'erthrew,
Machines and tempests will destroy the new.

EPILOGUE ON THE SAME OCCASION.

Though what our Prologue said was sadly true,
Yet, gentlemen, our homely house is new,
A charm that seldom fails with wicked you.
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,
Untouched your ribbons, sacred be your dress;
So may you slowly to old age advance,
And have the 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 scourings 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-paved 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 reserved 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 monsieurs to succeed:
You know the French sure cards at time of need.

PROLOGUE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1674.

SPOKEN BY MR. HART.

Poets, your subjects, have their parts assigned,
To unbend, and to divert their sovereign's mind;
When tired 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 conquered, 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, undebauched, 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 showed 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:
That Shakespeare's, Fletcher's, and great Jonson's claim,
May be renewed from those who gave them fame.
None of our living poets dare appear;
For muses so severe are worshipped here,
That, conscious of their faults, they shun the eye,
And, as profane, from sacred places fly,
Rather than see the 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,
Debased 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.

EPILOGUE SPOKEN AT OXFORD, BY MRS. MARSHALL.

Oft has our poet wished, this happy seat
Might prove his fading muse's last retreat:
I wondered at his wish, but now I find
He sought for quiet, and content of mind;
Which noiseful towns, and courts, can never know,
And only in the shades, like laurels, grow.
Youth, ere it sees the world, here studies rest,
And age, returning thence, concludes it best.
What wonder if we court that happiness
Yearly to share, which hourly you possess,
Teaching e'en you, while the vext world we show,
Your peace to value more, and better know?
'Tis all we can return for favours past,
Whose holy memory shall ever last,
For patronage from him whose care presides
O'er every noble art, and every science guides;
Bathurst, a name the learned with reverence know,
And scarcely more to his own Virgil owe;
Whose age enjoys but what his youth deserved,
To rule those muses whom before he served.
His learning, and untainted manners too,
We find, Athenians, are derived to you;
Such ancient hospitality there rests
In yours, as dwelt in the first Grecian breasts,
Whose kindness was religion to their guests.
Such modesty did to our sex appear,
As, had there been no laws, we need not fear,
Since each of you was our protector here.
Converse so chaste, and so strict virtue shown,
As might Apollo with the muses own.
Till our return, we must despair to find
Judges so just, so knowing, and so kind.

ORIGINAL PROLOGUE TO CIRCE,

BY DR. CHARLES D'AVENANT, 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 heartened well, and fleshed upon his prey,
The youth may prove a man another day.
For your own sakes, instruct him when he's out,
You'll find him mend his work at every bout.
When some young lusty thief is passing by,
How many of your tender kind will cry,
“A proper fellow! pity he should die!
He might be saved, and thank us for our pains,
There's such a stock of love within his veins.”
These arguments the women may persuade,
But move not you, the brothers of the trade,
Who, scattering your infection through the pit,
With aching hearts and empty purses sit,
To take your dear five shillings' worth of wit.
The praise you give him, in your kindest mood,
Comes dribbling from you, just like drops of blood;
And then you clap so civilly, for fear
The loudness might offend your neighbour's ear,
That we suspect your gloves are lined within,
For silence sake, and cotton'd next the skin.
From these usurpers we appeal to you,
The only knowing, only judging few;
You, who in private have this play allowed,
Ought to maintain your suffrage to the crowd.
The captive, once submitted to your bands,
You should protect from death by vulgar hands.

PROLOGUE TO CIRCE, AS CORRECTED BY DRYDEN.

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 heartened well, and fleshed upon his prey,
The youth may prove a man another day.
Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight,
Did no Volpone, no Arbaces write;
But hopped about, and short excursions made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid,
And each was guilty of some Slighted Maid.
Shakespeare'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.

EPILOGUE, INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN BY THE LADY HEN. MAR. WENTWORTH,

WHEN CALISTO WAS ACTED AT COURT, IN 1675.

As Jupiter I made my court in vain;
I'll now assume my native shape again.
I'm weary to be so unkindly used,
And would not be a god, to be refused.
State grows uneasy when it hinders love;
A glorious burden, 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,
Even 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:
Peace, the loathed manna, which hot brains despise,
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.

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 Harlequins in farce may pass;
But there goes more to a substantial ass:
Something of man must be exposed 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;
And, when he sings, talks loud, and cocks, would cry,
I vow, methinks, he's pretty company!
So brisk, so gay, so travelled, so refined,
As he took pains to graff upon his kind.
True fops help nature's work, and go to school,
To fill and finish God Almighty's fool.
Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him can call;
He's knight o' the shire, and represents ye 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 snow-ball 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 designed;
And this the yard-long snake he twirls behind.
From one the sacred periwig he gained,
Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profaned.
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 feared;
For no one fool is hunted from the herd.

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 thanked, we live in such an age,
When no man dies for love but on the stage:
And e'en those martyrs are but rare in plays;
A cursed sign how much true faith decays.
Love is no more a violent desire;
'Tis a mere metaphor, a painted fire.
In all our sex, the name examined 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 make 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 Swizzers, for their pay.

PROLOGUE TO THE TRUE WIDOW.

BY THOMAS SHADWELL, 1678.

Heaven save ye, gallants, and this hopeful age!
Y' are welcome to the downfall of the stage.
The fools have laboured long in their vocation,
And vice, the manufacture of the nation,
O'erstocks the town so much, and thrives so well,
That fops and knaves grow drugs, and will not sell.
In vain our wares on theatres are shown,
When each has a plantation of his own.
His cruse ne'er fails; for whatsoe'er he spends,
There's still God's plenty for himself and friends.
Should men be rated by poetic rules,
Lord, what a poll would there be raised from fools!
Meantime poor wit prohibited must lie,
As if 'twere made some French commodity.
Fools you will have, and raised at vast expense;
And yet, as soon as seen, they give offence.
Time was, when none would cry,—That oaf was me;
But now you strive about your pedigree.
Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down,
But there's a muss of more than half the town.
Each one will challenge a child's part at least;
A sign the family is well increased.
Of foreign cattle there's no longer need,
When we're supplied so fast with English breed.
Well! flourish, countrymen; drink, swear, and roar;
Let every free-born subject keep his whore,
And wandering in the wilderness about,
At end of forty years not wear her out.
But when you see these pictures, let none dare
To own beyond a limb, or single share;
For where the punk is common, he's a sot,
Who needs will father what the parish got.

PROLOGUE TO CÆSAR BORGIA.

BY MR. N. LEE, 1680.

The unhappy man, who once has trailed a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
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 lecher 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 best 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 tolled 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 called the Court;
But now the great exchange of news 'tis hight,
And full of hum and buzz 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, armed with bottled ale, you huff the French.
But all your entertainment still is fed
By villains in our 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 refined, 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 practised there,
That 'tis infallible as is the chair.
But mark their feasts, you shall behold such pranks!
The Pope says grace, but 'tis the devil gives thanks.

PROLOGUE TO SOPHONISBA;

SPOKEN 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 Æschylus, 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;
Nor should we scape the sentence, to depart,
Even in our first original, a cart;
Your poets shall be used like infidels,
And worst, the author of the Oxford bells;
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 called the soul an organ-pipe,
Which, by some little help of derivation,
Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.

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 shrove-tide crew to fire and blood.
Remove your benches, you apostate pit,
And 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;
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 ye 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 poached in rhyme;
If these should fail—
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.

EPILOGUE SPOKEN AT MITHRIDATES, KING OF PONTUS,

THE FIRST PLAY ACTED AT THE THEATRE ROYAL, 1681.

Mrs. Cox.
What shall I say? I have been hence so long,
I've e'en almost forgot my mother-tongue;
If I can act, I wish I were ten fathom
Beneath—

Goodman.

O Lord! pray, no swearing, madam!

Mrs. Cox.
If I had sworn, yet sure, to serve the nation,
I could find out some mental reservation.
Well, in plain terms, gallants, without a sham,
Will you be pleased to take me as I am?
Quite out of countenance, with a downcast look,
Just like a truant that returns to book:
Yet I'm not old; but, if I were, this place
Ne'er wanted art to piece a ruined face.
When greybeards governed, I forsook the stage;
You know 'tis piteous work to act with age.
Though there's no sense among these beardless boys,
There's what we women love, that's mirth and noise.
These young beginners may grow up in time,
And the devil's in't, if I am past my prime.

EPILOGUE TO A TRAGEDY CALLED TAMERLANE, 1681.

BY CHARLES SAUNDERS.

Ladies, the beardless author of this day
Commends to you the fortune of his play.
A woman-wit has often graced 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 blossomed soon, yet flourished long;
This is as forward, and may prove as strong.
Youth with the fair should always favour find,
Or we are damned 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 even 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 pleased to find a hot unbroken wit;
By management he may in time be made,
But there's no hopes of an old battered jade;
Faint and unnerved, he runs into a sweat,
And always fails you at the second heat.

PROLOGUE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1681.

The famed Italian muse, whose rhymes advance
Orlando, and the Paladins of France,
Records that, when our wit and sense is flown,
'Tis lodged within the circle of the moon,
In earthen jars, which one, who thither soared,
Set to his nose, snuffed up, and was restored.
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 the old cause inclined,
May snuff the votes their fellows left behind;
Your country neighbours, when their grain grows dear,
May come, and find their last provision here;
Whereas we cannot much lament our loss,
Who neither carried back, nor brought one cross.
We looked what representatives would bring,
But they helped us—just as they did the king.
Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth
The Sibyl's books to those who know their worth;
And though the first was sacrificed 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 spared the vices of the age,
Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
Is forced to turn his satire into praise.

PROLOGUE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

Discord, and plots, which have undone our age,
With the same ruin have o'erwhelmed the stage.
Our house has suffered in the common woe,
We have been troubled with Scotch rebels too.
Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed departed,
And of our sisters, all the kinder-hearted
To Edinburgh gone, or coached, or carted.
With bonny bluecap there they act all night
For Scotch half-crown, in English three-pence hight.
One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean,
There with her single person fills the scene.
Another, with long use and age decayed,
Dived here old woman, and rose there a maid.
Our trusty door-keepers of former time
There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme.
Tack but a copper-lace to drugget suit,
And there's a hero made without dispute;
And that, which was a capon's tail before,
Becomes a plume for Indian emperor.
But all his subjects, to express the care
Of imitation, go, like Indians, bare;
Laced linen there would be a dangerous thing;
It might perhaps a new rebellion bring;
The Scot, who wore it, would be chosen king.
But why should I these renegades describe,
When you yourselves have seen a lewder tribe?
Teague has been here, and, to this learned pit,
With Irish action slandered English wit;
You have beheld such barbarous Macs appear,
As merited a second massacre;
Such as, like Cain, were branded with disgrace,
And had their country stamped upon their face.
When strollers durst presume to pick your purse,
We humbly thought our broken troop not worse.
How ill soe'er our action may deserve,
Oxford's a place where wit can never starve

AN EPILOGUE FOR THE KING'S HOUSE.

We act by fits and starts, like drowning men,
But just peep up, and then dop down again.
Let those who call us wicked change their sense,
For never men lived 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 spared his dream of seven lean kine,
And changed his vision for the muses nine.
The comet, that, they say, portends a dearth,
Was but a vapour drawn from playhouse 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 his wars with Heraclitus?
Such are the authors, who have run us down,
And exercised you critics of the town.
Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhymes,
Ye 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 their 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 wronged a dame,
Throw down his pen, and give her, as he can,
The satisfaction of a gentleman.

PROLOGUE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THEATRE AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND.

SPOKEN BY MR. SMITH, 21st APRIL 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 the 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 thronged 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 White-hall,
The fawning Devil appeared among the rest,
And made as good a courtier as the best.
The friends of Job, who railed 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 inclined,
Are clouds, that rack 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.

PROLOGUE TO THE EARL OF ESSEX.

By Mr. J. Banks, 1682.

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

When first the ark was landed on the shore,
And heaven had vowed 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 innocence is harbinger of love:
The ark is opened 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 loathe 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 aftertimes assure,
Of which our present age is not secure?
All that our monarch would for us ordain,
Is but to 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.

PROLOGUE TO THE LOYAL BROTHER, or THE PERSIAN PRINCE,

BY MR. SOUTHERNE, 1682.

Poets, like lawful monarchs, ruled the stage,
Till critics, liked damned Whigs, debauched 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 Edmondbury 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.
The devil, who brought him to the shame, takes part;
Sits cheek by jowl, in black, to cheer his heart,
Like thief and parson in a Tyburn-cart.
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, inspired 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 allowed,
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.

EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.

A virgin poet was served 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 murdered sense.
Though nonsense is a nauseous heavy mass,
The vehicle called 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;
Theirs 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 in 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 damned grievance every Whig complains,
They grunt like hogs till they have got their grains.
Mean time, you see what trade our plots advance;
We send each year good money into France;
And they that know what merchandise we need,
Send o'er true Protestants to mend our breed.

PROLOGUE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

SPOKEN BY MR. HART AT THE ACTING OF THE SILENT WOMAN.

What Greece, when learning flourished, only knew,
Athenian judges, you this day renew.
Here, too, are annual rites to Pallas done,
And here poetic prizes lost or won.
Methinks I see you, crowned with olives, sit,
And strike a sacred horror from the pit.
A day of doom is this of your decree,
Where even the best are but by mercy free;
A day, which none but Jonson durst have wished to see.
Here they, who long have known the useful stage,
Come to be taught themselves to teach the age.
As your commissioners our poets go,
To cultivate the virtue which you sow;
In your Lyceum first themselves refined,
And delegated thence to humankind.
But as ambassadors, when long from home,
For new instructions to their princes come,
So poets, who your precepts have forgot,
Return, and beg they may be better taught:
Follies and faults elsewhere by them are shown,
But by your manners they correct their own.
The illiterate writer, emp'ric-like, applies
To minds diseased, unsafe chance remedies:
The learned in schools, where knowledge first began,
Studies with care the anatomy of man;
Sees virtue, vice, and passions in their cause,
And fame from science, not from fortune, draws;
So Poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade.
There haughty dunces, whose unlearned pen
Could ne'er spell grammar, would be reading men.
Such build their poems the Lucretian way;
So many huddled atoms make a play;
And if they hit in order by some chance,
They call that nature, which is ignorance.
To such a fame let mere town-wits aspire,
And their gay nonsense their own cits admire.
Our poet, could he find forgiveness here,
Would wish it rather than a plaudit there.
He owns no crown from those Prætorian bands,
But knows that right is in the senate's hands.
Not impudent enough to hope your praise,
Low at the Muses' feet his wreath he lays,
And, where he took it up, resigns his bays.
Kings make their poets whom themselves think fit,
But 'tis your suffrage makes authentic wit.

EPILOGUE.

SPOKEN BY THE SAME.

No poor Dutch peasant, winged with all his fear,
Flies with more haste, when the French arms draw near,
Than we, with our poetic train, come down,
For refuge hither, from the infected town:
Heaven, for our sins, this summer has thought fit
To visit us with all the plagues of wit.
A French troop first swept all things in its way;
But those hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay:
Yet, to our cost, in that short time, we find
They left their itch of novelty behind.
The Italian merry-andrews took their place,
And quite debauched the stage with lewd grimace:
Instead of wit, and humours, your delight
Was there to see two hobby-horses fight;
Stout Scaramoucha with rush lance rode in,
And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin.
For love you heard how amorous asses brayed,
And cats in gutters gave their serenade.
Nature was out of countenance, and each day
Some new-born monster shown you for a play.
But when all failed, to strike the stage quite dumb,
Those wicked engines, called machines, are come.
Thunder and lightning now for wit are played,
And shortly scenes in Lapland will be laid:
Art magic is for poetry profest,
And cats and dogs, and each obscener beast,
To which Egyptian dotards once did bow,
Upon our English stage are worshipped now.
Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to renown
Macbeth and Simon Magus of the town.
Fletcher's despised, your Jonson's out of fashion,
And wit the only drug in all the nation.
In this low ebb our wares to you are shown,
By you those staple authors' worth is known,
For wit's a manufacture of your own.
When you, who only can, their scenes have praised,
We'll back, and boldly say, their price is raised.

PROLOGUE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

Though actors cannot much of learning boast,
Of all who want it, we admire it most:
We love the praises of a learned pit,
As we remotely are allied to wit.
We speak our poet's wit, and trade in ore,
Like those who touch upon the golden shore;
Betwixt our judges can distinction make,
Discern how much, and why our poems take;
Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
Whether the applause be only sound or voice.
When our fop gallants, or our city folly,
Clap over loud, it makes us melancholy:
We doubt that scene which does their wonder raise,
And, for their ignorance, contemn their praise.
Judge, then, if we who act, and they who write,
Should not be proud of giving you delight.
London likes grossly; but this nicer pit
Examines, fathoms, all the depths of wit;
The ready finger lays on every blot;
Knows what should justly please, and what should not.
Nature herself lies open to your view;
You judge, by her, what draught of her is true,
Where outlines false, and colours seem too faint,
Where bunglers daub, and where true poets paint.
But by the sacred genius of this place,
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 engage;
He chooses Athens in his riper age.

EPILOGUE TO CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.

BY MR. N. LEE, 1684.

Our hero's happy in the play's conclusion;
The holy rogue at last has met confusion:
Though Arius all along appeared a saint,
The last act showed him a True Protestant.
Eusebius,—for you know I read Greek authors,—
Reports, that, after all these plots and slaughters
The court of Constantine was full of glory,
And every Trimmer turned addressing Tory.
They followed him in herds as they were mad:
When Clause was king, then all the world was glad.
Whigs kept the places they possessed before,
And most were in a way of getting more;
Which was as much as saying, Gentlemen,
Here's power and money to be rogues again.
Indeed, there were a sort of peaking tools,
Some call them modest, but I call them fools;
Men much more loyal, though not half so loud,
But these poor devils were cast behind the crowd;
For bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence.
Besides all these, there were a sort of wights,
(I think my author calls them Tekelites,)
Such hearty rogues against the king and laws,
They favoured e'en a foreign rebel's cause,
When their own damned design was quashed and awed;
At least they gave it their good word abroad.
As many a man, who, for a quiet life,
Breeds out his bastard, not to nose his wife,
Thus, o'er their darling plot these Trimmers cry,
And, though they cannot keep it in their eye,
They bind it 'prentice to Count Tekely.
They believe not the last plot; may I be curst,
If I believe they e'er believed the first!
No wonder their own plot no plot they think,—
The man that makes it never smells the stink.
And, now it comes into my head, I'll tell
Why these damned Trimmers loved the Turks so well.
The original Trimmer, though a friend to no man,
Yet in his heart adored a pretty woman;
He knew that Mahomet laid up for ever
Kind black-eyed rogues for every true believer;
And,—which was more than mortal man e'er tasted,—
One pleasure that for threescore twelvemonths lasted.
To turn for this, may surely be forgiven;
Who'd not be circumcised for such a heaven?

PROLOGUE TO THE DISAPPOINTMENT, OR THE MOTHER IN FASHION.

BY MR. SOUTHERNE, 1684

SPOKEN BY MR. BETTERTON.

How comes it, gentlemen, that, nowadays,
When all of you so shrewdly judge of plays,
Our poets tax you still with want of sense?
All prologues treat you at your own expense.
Sharp citizens a wiser way can go;
They make you fools, but never call you so.
They in good manners seldom make a slip,
But treat a common whore with—ladyship:
But here each saucy wit at random writes,
And uses ladies as he uses knights.
Our author, young and grateful in his nature,
Vows, that from him no nymph deserves a satire:
Nor will he ever draw—I mean his rhyme,
Against the sweet partaker of his crime;
Nor is he yet so bold an undertaker,
To call men fools—'tis railing at their Maker.
Besides, he fears to split upon that shelf;
He's young enough to be a fop himself:
And, if his praise can bring you all abed,
He swears such hopeful youth no nation ever bred.
Your nurses, we presume in such a case,
Your father chose, because he liked the face,
And often they supplied your mother's place.
The dry nurse was your mother's ancient maid,
Who knew some former slip she ne'er betrayed.
Betwixt them both, for milk and sugar-candy,
Your sucking-bottles were well stored with brandy.
Your father, to initiate your discourse,
Meant to have taught you first to swear and curse,
But was prevented by each careful nurse.
For, leaving dad and mam, as names too common,
They taught you certain parts of man and woman.
I pass your schools; for there, when first you came,
You would be sure to learn the Latin name.
In colleges, you scorned the art of thinking,
But learned all moods and figures of good drinking;
Thence come to town, you practise play, to know
The virtues of the high dice, and the low.
Each thinks himself a sharper most profound:
He cheats by pence; is cheated by the pound.
With these perfections, and what else he gleans,
The spark sets up for love behind our scenes,
Hot in pursuit of princesses and queens.
There, if they know their man, with cunning carriage,
Twenty to one but it concludes in marriage.
He hires some homely room, love's fruits to gather,
And, garret high, rebels against his father:
But, he once dead—
Brings her in triumph, with her portion, down—
A toilet, dressing-box, and half-a-crown.
Some marry first, and then they fall to scowering,
Which is refining marriage into whoring.
Our women batten well on their good nature;
All they can rap and rend for the dear creature.
But while abroad so liberal the dolt is,
Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt is.
Last, some there are, who take their first degrees
Of lewdness in our middle galleries;
The doughty bullies enter bloody drunk,
Invade and grubble one another's punk:
They caterwaul, and make a dismal rout,
Call sons of whores, and strike, but ne'er lug out:
Thus, while for paltry punk they roar and stickle,
They make it bawdier than a conventicle.

PROLOGUE TO THE KING AND QUEEN,

UPON THE UNION OF THE TWO COMPANIES, IN 1686.

EPILOGUE ON THE SAME OCCASION.

PROLOGUE TO THE PRINCESS OF CLEVES.

BY MR. N. LEE, 1689.

Ladies! (I hope there's none behind to hear)
I long to whisper something in your ear:
A secret, which does much my mind perplex,—
There's treason in the play against our sex.
A man that's false to love, that vows and cheats,
And kisses every living thing he meets;
A rogue in mode,—I dare not speak too broad,—
One that—does something to the very bawd.
Out on him, traitor, for a filthy beast!
Nay, and he's like the pack of all the rest:
None of them stick at mark; they all deceive.
Some Jew has changed the text, I half believe;
Their Adam cozened our poor grandame Eve.
To hide their faults they rap out oaths, and tear;
Now, though we lie, we're too well bred to swear.
So we compound for half the sin we owe,
But men are dipt for soul and body too;
And, when found out, excuse themselves, pox cant them,
With Latin stuff, Perjuria ridet amantum.
I'm not book-learned, to know that word in vogue,
But I suspect 'tis Latin for a rogue.
I'm sure, I never heard that screech-owl hollowed
In my poor ears, but separation followed.
How can such perjured villains e'er be saved?
Achitophel's not half so false to David.
With vows and soft expressions to allure,
They stand, like foremen of a shop, demure:
No sooner out of sight, but they are gadding,
And for the next new face ride out a padding.
Yet, by their favour, when they have been kissing,
We can perceive the ready money missing.
Well! we may rail; but 'tis as good e'en wink;
Something we find, and something they will sink.
But, since they're at renouncing, 'tis our parts
To trump their diamonds, as they trump our hearts.

EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.

A qualm of conscience brings me back again,
To make amends to you bespattered men.
We women love like cats, that hide their joys,
By growling, squalling, and a hideous noise.
I railed at wild young sparks; but, without lying,
Never was man worse thought on for high-flying.
The prodigal of love gives each her part,
And, squandering, shows at least a noble heart.
I've heard of men, who, in some lewd lampoon,
Have hired a friend to make their valour known.
That accusation straight this question brings,—
What is the man that does such naughty things?
The spaniel lover, like a sneaking fop,
Lies at our feet:—he's scarce worth taking up.
'Tis true, such heroes in a play go far;
But chamber-practice is not like the bar.
When men such vile, such faint petitions make,
We fear to give, because they fear to take;
Since modesty's the virtue of our kind,
Pray let it be to our own sex confined.
When men usurp it from the female nation,
'Tis but a work of supererogation.
We showed a princess in the play, 'tis true,
Who gave her Cæsar more than all his due;
Told her own faults; but I should much abhor
To choose a husband for my confessor.
You see what fate followed the saint-like fool,
For telling tales from out the nuptial school.
Our play a merry comedy had proved,
Had she confessed so much to him she loved.
True Presbyterian wives the means would try;
But damned confessing is flat Popery.

PROLOGUE TO ARVIRAGUS AND PHILICIA.

BY LODOWICK CARLELL, ESQ.

SPOKEN BY MR. HART.

With sickly actors, and an old house too,
We're matched 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,
A brisk French troop is grown your dear delight;
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 lacqueys 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 breeding;
Each lady striving to outlaugh the rest,
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.

PROLOGUE TO THE PROPHETESS,

BY BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

REVIVED BY DRYDEN.

SPOKEN BY MR. BETTERTON.

What Nostradame, with all his art, can guess
The fate of our approaching Prophetess?
A play, which, like a prospective 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, even 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 vanquished 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 delights;
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, called dumb-founding.
Their loss with patience we will try to bear,
And would do more, to see you often here;
That our dead stage, revived by your fair eyes,
Under a female regency may rise.

PROLOGUE TO THE MISTAKES.

Enter
Mr. Bright.

Gentlemen, we must beg your pardon; here's no prologue to be had to-day. Our new play is like to come on, without a frontispiece; as bald as one of you young beaux without your periwig. I left our young poet, snivelling and sobbing behind the scenes, and cursing somebody that has deceived him.

Enter
Mr. Bowen.

Hold your prating to the audience; here's honest Mr. Williams just come in, half mellow, from the Rose-Tavern. He swears he is inspired with claret, and will come on, and that extempore too, either with a prologue of his own, or something like one. O here he comes

to his trial, at all adventures; for my part, I wish him a good deliverance.

[Exeunt Mr. Bright and Mr Bowen.
Enter
Mr. Williams.
Save ye, sirs, save ye! I am in a hopeful way.
I should speak something, in rhyme, now, for the play;
But the deuce take me, if I know what to say.
I'll stick to my friend the author, that I can tell ye,
To the last drop of claret in my belly.
So far I'm sure 'tis 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.
But, for this play—(which till I have done, we show not)
What may be its fortune—by the Lord—I know not.
This I dare swear, no malice here is writ;
'Tis innocent of all things—even of wit.
He's no high-flyer—he makes no sky-rockets,
His squibs are only levelled at your pockets;
And if his crackers light among your pelf,
You are blown up; if not, then he's blown up himself.
By this time, I'm something recovered of my flustered madness;
And now, a word or two in sober sadness.
Ours is a common play; and you pay down
A common harlot's price—just half a crown.
You'll say, I play the pimp, on my friend's score;
But, since 'tis for a friend, your gibes give o'er,
For many a mother has done that before.
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 failed?
But Shakespeare's greater genius still prevailed.
Have not some writing actors, in this age,
Deserved and found success upon the stage?
To tell the truth, when our old wits are tired,
Not one of us but means to be inspired.
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.

EPILOGUE TO HENRY II.,

BY JOHN BANCROFT.

AND PUBLISHED BY MR. MOUNTFORT, 1693.

SPOKEN BY MRS. BRACEGIRDLE.

Thus you the sad catastrophe have seen,
Occasioned by a mistress and a queen.
Queen Eleanor the proud was French, they say;
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 whoring Harry in the play?
I guess your minds; the mistress would be taking,
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' the 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.
Though for your love, perhaps, I should not care,
I could not hate a man that bids me fair.
What might ensue, 'tis hard for me to tell;
But I was drenched to-day for loving well,
And fear the poison that would make me swell.

A PROLOGUE.

Gallants, a bashful poet bids me say,
He's come to lose his maidenhead to-day.
Be not too fierce; for he's but green of age,
And ne'er, till now, debauched upon the stage.
He wants the suffering part of resolution,
And comes with blushes to his execution.
Ere you deflower his Muse, he hopes the pit
Will make some settlement upon his wit.
Promise him well, before the play begin;
For he would fain be cozened into sin.
'Tis not but that he knows you mean to fail;
But, if you leave him after being frail,
He'll have, at least, a fair pretence to rail;
To call you base, and swear you used him ill,
And put you in the new Deserters' Bill.
Lord, what a troop of perjured men we see;
Enow to fill another Mercury!
But this the ladies may with patience brook;
Theirs are not the first colours you forsook.
He would be loath the beauties to offend;
But, if he should, he's not too old to mend.
He's a young plant, in his first year of bearing;
But his friend swears, he will be worth the rearing.
His gloss is still upon him; though 'tis true
He's yet unripe, yet take him for the blue.
You think an apricot half green is best;
There's sweet and sour, and one side good at least.
Mangos and limes, whose nourishment is little,
Though not for food, are yet preserved for pickle,
So this green writer may pretend, at least,
To whet your stomachs for a better feast.
He makes this difference in the sexes too;
He sells to men, he gives himself to you.
To both he would contribute some delight;
A mere poetical hermaphrodite.
Thus he's equipped, both to be wooed, and woo;
With arms offensive, and defensive too;
'Tis hard, he thinks, if neither part will do.

PROLOGUE TO ALBUMAZAR.

To say this comedy pleased long ago,
Is not enough to make it pass you now.
Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit,
When few men censured, and when fewer writ.
And Jonson, of those few the best, chose this,
As the best model of his master-piece:
Subtle was got by our Albumazar,
That Alchymist by this Astrologer;
Here he was fashioned, and we may suppose,
He liked the fashion well, who wore the clothes.
But Ben made nobly his what he did mould;
What was another's lead, becomes his gold:
Like an unrighteous conqueror he reigns,
Yet rules that well which he unjustly gains.
But this our age such authors does afford,
As make whole plays, and yet scarce write one word;
Who, in this anarchy of wit, rob all,
And what's their plunder, their possession call;
Who, like bold padders, scorn by night to prey,
But rob by sunshine, in the face of day:
Nay, scarce the common ceremony use
Of, “Stand, Sir, and deliver up your Muse;”
But knock the poet down, and, with a grace,
Mount Pegasus before the owner's face.
Faith, if you have such country Toms abroad,
'Tis time for all true men to leave that road.
Yet it were modest, could it but be said,
They strip the living, but these rob the dead;
Dare with the mummies of the Muses play,
And make love to them the Egyptian way;
Or, as a rhyming author would have said,
Join the dead living to the living dead.
Such men in poetry may claim some part,
They have the licence, though they want the art;
And might, where theft was praised, for laureats stand,
Poets, not of the head, but of the hand.
They make the benefits of others' studying,
Much like the meals of politic Jack-Pudding,
Whose dish to challenge no man has the courage;
'Tis all his own, when once he has spit i'the porridge.
But, gentlemen, you're all concerned in this;
You are in fault for what they do amiss;
For they their thefts still undiscovered think,
And durst not steal, unless you please to wink.
Perhaps, you may award by your decree,
They should refund,—but that can never be;
For, should you letters of reprisal seal,
These men write that which no man else would steal.

AN EPILOGUE.

You saw your wife was chaste, yet throughly tried,
And, without doubt, you are hugely edified;
For, like our hero, whom we showed to-day,
You think no woman true, but in a play.
Love once did make a pretty kind of show;
Esteem and kindness in one breast would grow;
But 'twas heaven knows how many years ago.
Now some small chat, and guinea expectation,
Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation.
In comedy your little selves you meet;
'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges Street.
Smile on our author then, if he has shown
A jolly nut-brown bastard of your own.
Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight,
Who act those follies, poets toil to write!
The sweating Muse does almost leave the chase;
She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vices pace.
Pinch you but in one vice, away you fly
To some new frisk of contrariety.
You roll like snow-balls, gathering as you run,
And get seven devils, when dispossessed of one.
Your Venus once was a Platonic queen,
Nothing of love beside the face was seen;
But every inch of her you now uncase,
And clap a vizard-mask upon the face;
For sins like these, the zealous of the land,
With little hair, and little or no band,
Declare how circulating pestilences
Watch, every twenty years, to snap offences.
Saturn, e'en now, takes doctoral degrees;
He'll do your work this summer without fees.
Let all the boxes, Phœbus, find thy grace,
And, ah, preserve the eighteen-penny place!
But for the pit confounders, let them go,
And find as little mercy as they show!
The actors thus, and thus thy poets pray;
For every critic saved, thou damn'st a play.

EPILOGUE TO THE HUSBAND HIS OWN CUCKOLD.

Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit,
So trembles a young poet at a full pit.
Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear,
And wonders how the devil he durst come there;
Wanting three talents needful for the place,
Some beard, some learning, and some little grace.
Nor is the puny poet void of care;
For authors, such as our new authors are,
Have not much learning, nor much wit to spare;
And as for grace, to tell the truth, there's scarce one,
But has as little as the very parson:
Both say, they preach and write for your instruction;
But 'tis for a third day, and for induction.
The difference is, that though you like the play,
The poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day;
But with the parson 'tis another case,
He, without holiness, may rise to grace;
The poet has one disadvantage more,
That if his play be dull, he's damned all o'er,
Not only a damn'd blockhead, but damn'd poor.
But dulness well becomes the sable garment;
I warrant that ne'er spoiled a priest's preferment;
Wit's not his business, and as wit now goes,
Sirs, 'tis not so much yours as you suppose,
For you like nothing now but nauseous beaux.
You laugh not, gallants, as by proof appears,
At what his beauship says, but what he wears;
So 'tis your eyes are tickled, not your ears.
The tailor and the furrier find the stuff,
The wit lies in the dress, and monstrous muff.
The truth on 't is, the payment of the pit
Is like for like, clipt money for clipt wit.
You cannot from our absent author hope,
He should equip the stage with such a fop.
Fools change in England, and new fools arise;
For, though the immortal species never dies,
Yet every year new maggots make new flies.
But where he lives abroad, he scarce can find
One fool, for million that he left behind.