University of Virginia Library

The Prologue Enters with a Play-Bill in his hand, and Reads,

This Day being the 15
t h of December, shall be Acted a New Play, never Plai'd before, call'd The Adventures
of Five Hours.

Th'are t'the right, for I dare boldly say,
The English Stage ne'r had so New a Play;
The Dress, the Author, and the Scenes are New.
This ye have seen before ye'l say; 'tis true;
But tell me, Gentlemen, who ever saw
A deep Intrigue confin'd to Five Hours Law.
Such as for close Contrivance yields to none:
A Modest Man may praise what's not his own.
'Tis true, the Dress is his, which he submits
To those who are, and those who would be Wits;
Ne'r spare him Gentlemen, for to speak truth,
He has a per'lous Cens'rer been in's Youth;
And now grown Bald with Age, Doating on Praise,
He thinks to get a Periwig of Bays.
Teach him what 'tis, in this Discerning Age
To bring his heavy Genius on the Stage;
Where you have seen such Nimble Wits appear,
That pass'd so soon, one scarce could say th'were here.
Yet after our Discoveries of late
Of their Designs, who would Subvert the State;
You'l wonder much, if it should prove his Lot,
To take all England with a Spanish Plot;
But if through his ill Conduct, or hard Fate,
This Forein Plot (like that of Eighty Eight)
Should suffer Shipwrack in your Narrow Seas,
You'll give your Modern Poet his Writ of Ease;
For by th'Example of the King of Spain,
He resolves ne'r to trouble you again.