PROLOGUE.
Gentlemen, Inductions are out of date, and a
Prologue in Verse, is as stale as a black Velvet
Cloak, and a Bay Garland: therefore you shall
have it plain Prose, thus: If there be any amongst you,
that come to hear lascivious Scenes, let them depart: for
I do pronounce this, to the utter discomfort of all two-
penny Gallery men, you shall have no bawdery in it: or
if there be any lurking amongst you in corners, with Table-
books, who have some hope to find fit matter to feed
his—malice on, let them claspe them up, and slink
away, or stay and be converted. For he that made this
Play, means to please Auditors so, as he may be an Auditor
himself hereafter, and not purchase them with the
dearness of his cares: I dare not call it Comedy or
Tragedy; 'tis perfectly neither: A Play it is, which
was meant to make you laugh, how it would please you,
is not written in my Part: for though you should like
it to day, perhaps your selves know not how you should
digest it to morrow: Some things in it you may meet
with, which are out of the common road: a Duke there
is, and the Scæne lies in Italy, as those two things
lightly we never miss. But you shall not find in it
the ordinary and over-worn Trade of jesting at Lords
and Courtiers, and Citizens, without taxation of any
particular or new vice by them found out, but at the
persons of them: such, he, that made this, thinks vile,
and for his own part vows; That he did never think
but that a Lord, Lord born might be a wise man, and
a Courtier an honest man.
