University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUE.

Spoken by Mrs. Bracegirdle.
The Ladies have a lonely Summer past,
In hopes kind Winter would return at last.
The Seasons change; but Heroes are the same,
A Twelve-month running in pursuit of Fame:
Theirs may be good, but they have spoilt our Game.
Some weak amends this thin Town might afford,
If honest Gentlemen would keep their word.
But your lewd Tunbridge-Scandal that was moving,
Foretold how sad a Time wou'd come for Loving.
Sad Time indeed when you begin to write:
'Tis a shrewd sign of waning Appetite,
When you forget your selves, to think of Wit.
Whilst thus your Itch is only to bespatter,
Your Cupid is transform'd into a Satyr:
Nothing of Man about you, all o're Beast;
Submitting your chief pleasure to your Jest.
Then Time will come (for Ireland falls of Course,
And must send back her Conquerours, and ours)
When each of us our Losses do recover,
Will mend her Fortune in a Soldier-Lover:
They'l use us better much, then you have done,
Take us in, passing, like an open Town,
And plunder, do their business, and be gone.
Or if, at leisure, they lye down to woo,
They'l rather make us Whores, then call us so:
Not send a whisp'ring Libel thro' the Town,
To blab the Favour out, before 'tis done;
And maul the Ladies only in Lampoon.
But if they write in a Sententious Strain,
Two Lines conclude the Travels of their Pen
One, only to know where, and t'other, when.
And we can give a Lover leave to write,
When all his Bills are to be paid at sight.
O! wou'd our peaceful days were come agen;
Then I might act it, on and off, a Queen.
When once the Child was turn'd into her Teens,
You cou'd not find a Maid behind the Scenes.
But now your keeping humor's out a door,
We must dye Maids, or marry to be poor.