University of Virginia Library

THE PROLOGUE,

How? A new Play? is this a time for Plays?
Wit was a wretched thing in it's best dayes,
A fair poor Wife, which only had a white
And tempting Skin, which Vermine love to bite.
But now the Nation in a tempest rowles,
And Old St. Peters, justles with St. Pauls,
And whilst these two great Ladys fight and braule,
Pick pocket Conventicle. Whore gets all.
Ungrateful Jade, from Rome it is most clear,
She had the stinking Fish she sels so dear,
And in this broyl no shelter can be found,
In our poor Play house fallen to the ground.
The Times Neglect, and Maladies have thrown
The two great Pillars of our Play-house down;
The two tall Cedars of the vocal Grove,
That vented Oracles of Wit and Love.
Where many a Nightingal has sweetly sung,
Whose Boughs with shreiks of Owles too oft has rung:
But such strange Charmes did in their Ecchoes lie;
They gave the very Owles a Harmony.
But in our Shrubs no such sweet Ecchoes dwell,
Here Wit will find but Rods to switch her well.
What makes her then appear? what makes a kind
Young Wench go meet her Friend in rain and wind,
And rather than the Assignation fail,
Daggle at once her Honour and her Tayl?
Nature who did dispose her to the Trade,
So soon, that she was scarcely born a Maid.
Perhaps she'l blame her Stars, but she wou'd fall,
To sinning, if there were no Stars at all.
Nature to writing such delight has joyn'd
To propogate man's Wit as well as Kind.
This Poet draws his Lust to write from thence.
Did Malice blast him like a Pestilence,
Like the blind Piper he'd the Plague out-brave,
And tune his Pipe though carryed to the Grave.