PROLOGUE to CÆSAR BORGIA.
[By Mr. N. LEE, 1680.]
TH' unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
What praise soe'er the poetry deserve,
Yet every fool can bid the poet starve.
That fumbling letcher to revenge is bent,
Because he thinks himself or whore is meant:
Name but a cuckold, all the city swarms;
From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms :
Were there no fear of Antichrift or France,
In the blest time poor poets live by chance.
Either you come not here, or, as you grace
Some old acquaintance, drop into the place,
Careless and qualmish with a yawning face :
You sleep o'er wit, and by my troth you may;
Most of your talents lie another way.
You love to hear of some prodigious tale,
The bell that toll'd alone, or Irish whale.
News is your food, and you enough provide,
Both for yourselves, and all the world beside.
One theatre there is of vast refort,
Which whilome of Requests was called the Court;
But now the great Exchange of News 'tis hight,
And full of hum and buz from noon till night.
Up stairs and down you run, as for a race,
And each man wears three nations in his face.
So big you look, though claret you retrench,
That, arm'd with bottled ale, you huff the French.
But all your entertainment still is fed
By villains in your own dull island bred.
Would you return to us, we dare engage
To shew you better rogues upon the stage.
You know no poison but plain ratibane here;
Death 's more refin'd, and better bred elfewhere.
They have a civil way in Italy
By smelling a perfume to make you die;
A trick would make you lay your snuff-box by.
Murder 's a trade, so known and practis'd there,
That 'tis infallible as is the chair.
But, mark their feast, you shall behold fuch pranks;
The pope fays grace, but 'tis the devil gives thanks.
PROLOGUE to SOPHONISBA, at Oxford, 1680. THESPIS, the first profeffor of our art,
At country wakes, fung ballads from a cart.
To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,
Dicitur & plauftris vexisse Poemata Thespis.
But Æschylus, says Horace in some page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the stage:
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport
Of toffing poets in a tennis court.
But 'tis the talent of our English nation,
Still to be plotting some new reformation :
And few years hence, if anarchy goes on,
Jack Prefbyter shall here erect his throne,
Knock out a tub with preaching once a day,
And every prayer be longer than a play.
Then all your heathen wits shall go to pot,
For disbelieving of a Popish-plot:
Your poets shall be us'd like infidels,
And worst the author of the Oxford bells :
Nor should we 'scape the fentence, to depart,
Ev'n in our first original, a cart.
No zealous brother there would want a stone,
To maul us cardinals, and pelt pope Joan :
Religion, learning, wit, would be fuppreft,
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast :
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down,
As chief fupporters of the triple crown;
And Aristotle 's for destruction ripe;
Some fay, he call'd the foul an organ-pipe,
Which by some little help of derivation,
Shall then be prov'd a pipe of inspiration.
F yet there be a few that take delight
In that which reasonable men should write;
To them alone we dedicate this night.
The rest may fatisfy their curious itch
With city gazettes, or some factious speech,
Or whate'er libel, for the public good,
Stirs up the shrove-tide crew to fire and blood,
Reinove your benches, you apostate pit,
And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the rope,
Or fee what's worse, the devil and the pope.
The plays that take on our corrupted stage,
Methinks, refemble the distracted age;
Noise, madness, all unreasonable things,
That strike at sense, as rebels do at kings.
The style of forty-one our poets write,
And you are grown to judge like forty-eight.
Such cenfures our mistaking audience make,
That 'tis almost grown scandalous to take.
They talk of fevers that infect the brains;
But nonsense is the new disease that reigns.
Weak ftomachs, with a long disease oppreft,
Cannot the cordials of strong wit digeft.
Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye choose,
Decoctions of a barley-water Muse :
A meal of tragedy would make you fick,
Unless it were a very tender chick.
Some scenes in sippets would be worth our time;
Those would go down; some love that's poach'd in
If these should fail
We must lie down, and, after all our cost,
Keep holiday, like watermen in frost;
While you turn players on the world's great stage,
And act yourselves the farce of your own age.
EPILOGUE to a Tragedy called TAMERLANE.
[By Mr. SAUNDERS.]
LADIES, the beardless author of this day
Commends to you the fortune of his play.
A woman wit has often grac'd the stage;
But he 's the first boy-poet of our age.
Early as is the year his fancies blow,
Like young Narcissus peeping through the snow.
Thus Cowley bloffom'd foon, yet flourish'd long;
This is as forward, and may prove as strong.
Youth with the fair should always favour find,
Or we are damn'd dissemblers of our kind.
What's all this love they put into our parts?
'Tis but the pit-a-pat of two young hearts.
Should hag and grey-beard make such tender moan,
Faith, you'd ev'n trust them to themselves alone,
And cry, Let's go, here's nothing to be done.
Since Love 's our business, as 'tis your delight,
The young, who best can practise, best can write.
What though he be not come to his full power,
He's mending and improving every hour.
You fly the-jockies of the box and pit,
Are pleas'd to find a hot unbroken wit :
By management he may in time be made,
But there's no hopes of an old batter'd jade;
Faint and unnerv'd he runs into a sweat,
And always fails you at the second heat.
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