 | The Tragedie of Hero and Leander |  |
The Prologue.
Bankers with Ginnyes may their purses fill,And travel safer over Shooter's Hill,
Then Poets with their Stock can pass this Road;
To rob them of Applause is now the Mode:
He's scarce esteem'd a Gallant, in our dayes,
Who has not Hector'd two or three new Playes.
Joyn'd with this Party, as the Author's told,
Are some, who neither spare new Playes, nor old.
Censurers, that, like Picklocks of the Law,
In any thing that's penn'd, will find a flaw;
And have a Peck to him, because he chuses
A Subject, which new-modell'd Rhyme abuses:
For Love and Honour (Theams of former Ages)
Are turn'd into Bourlesque, on modern Stages:
Where a Jack-Pudding acts great Alexander,
And Puppets play mock-Hero and Leander.
That Hero and Leander (further fam'd
Then any Land which Alexander claim'd)
Should be disparag'd; Mimick, scorn, not Wit,
Deriding what the noblest Poet writ.
Blame not our Poet, if he be inrag'd,
Ladyes, You and your Servants are ingag'd;
For, Hero's Injury concerns the Faire;
Leander's, all those Men, who bravely dare.
| The Tragedie of Hero and Leander | |