 | Loves Cure or, The Martial Maid |  |
143
A PROLOGUE At the reviving of this Play.
Statues and Pictures challenge price and fame;If they can justly boast, and prove they came
From Phidias or Apelles. None deny,
Poets and Painters hold a sympathy;
Yet their workes may decay and lose their grace,
Receiving blemish in their limbs or face.
When the minds art has this preheminence,
She still retaineth her first excellence.
Then why should not this deere peece be esteem'd
Child to the richest fancies that ere teem'd?
When not their meanest off-spring, that came forth,
But bore the image of their fathers worth.
Beaumonts, and Fletchers, whose desert outwayes
The best applause, and their least sprig of Bayes
Is worthy Phæbus; and who comes to gather
Their fruits of wit, he shall not rob the treasure.
Nor can you ever surfeit of the plenty,
Nor can you call them rare, though they be dainty:
The more you take, the more you do them right,
And wee will thanke you for your own delight.
| Loves Cure or, The Martial Maid | |