University of Virginia Library

THE PROLOGUE TO THE HOUSE.

Your looks are eager, Gentlemen; new Plays,
Like our new Beauties, expectation raise
So high, you promise to your selves a Feast
Of Wonders; alas, Miracles are ceas'd:
No working now by Supernatural means,
Beaumont and Fletcher have writ their last Scenes:
No Johnson's Art, no Shakespear's wit in Nature:
For, Men are shrunk in Brain as well as Stature.
Little pure Wit is stirring, (I confess;)
And that's cri'd down by those that have much less;
And some by the Fanaticks have been taught
To conclude, All Gentlemen do, is naught.
When those Grave Criticks in their Cradles lay,
Good Plays grew faster than ill Weeds, than they:
Now, one would think, that our slow Writers play'd
A Spanish Mate at Chess, for Draughts are made,
Since meer Gambetters kept the Stage in aw,
For, (whoe'r sets the Men) they give the Law,
Tyrannically, to our cost we know it,
For (Right or wrong) they judge against the Poet.
From such (whom Spleen and Prejudice transport)
Th'Author refers himself to this just Court,
These Noble Ladies, Lords, and Gentlemen,
And humbly at your feet he lays his Pen:
If bad, it shall not write another Letter;
If't please, he'l take it up, and please you better.
Incourag'd Poets heighten their Designes,
Like Painters, who at first draw ruder Lines.