XIII.

PROLOGUE to the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD, 1681.

THE fam'd Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance

Orlando, and the Paladins of France,

Records, that, when our wit and sense is flown,
'Tis lodg'd within the circle of the moon,
In earthen jars, which one, who thither foar'd,
Set to his nose, snuff'd up, and was restor'd.
Whate'er the story be, the moral 's true;
The wit we lost in town, we find in you.
Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
And fill their windy heads with fober sense.
When London votes with Southwark's difagree,
Here may they find their long-loft loyalty.
Here busy senates, to th' old cause inclin'd,
May snuff the votes their fellows left behind :
Your country neighbours, when their grain grows dear,
May come, and find their last provifion here :
Whereas we cannot much lament our lofs,
Who neither carry'd back, nor brought one cross.
We look'd what reprefentatives would bring;
But they help'd us, just as they did the king.
Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth

The Sibyls books to those who know their worth;

And though the first was facrific'd before,

These volumes doubly will the price restore.

Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prescription you are kind.
He, whose undaunted Muse, with loyal rage,
Has never spar'd the vices of the age,

Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
Is forc'd to turn his fatire into praise.

XIV.

PROLOGUE to his Royal Highness, upon his firit
Appearance at the Duke's Theatre, after his
Return from Scotland, 1682.

I
N those cold regions which no fummers chear,
Where brooding darkness covers half the year,
To hollow caves the shivering natives go;
Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of snow.
But when the tedious twilight wears away,
And stars grow paler at th' approach of day,
The longing crowds to frozen mountains run;
Happy who first can see the glimmering fun :

The furly favage offspring disappear,
And curse the bright fuccessor of the year.
Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence,
White foxes stay, with seeming innocence:
That crafty kind with day-light can dispense.
Still we are throng'd so full with Reynard's race,
That loyal subjects scarce can find a place :
Thus modest truth is caft behind the croud:

}

Truth speaks too low; hypocrify too loud.

Let iXV.

Let them be first to flatter in success;
Duty can stay, but guilt has need to press;
Once, when true zeal the fons of God did call,
To make their folemn shew at Heaven's Whitehall,
The fawning devil appear'd among the reft,
And made as good a courtier as the best."
The friends of Job, who rail'd at him before,
Came cap in hand when he had three times more.
Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true;
Kings can forgive, if rebels can but fue :
A tyrant's power in rigour is exprest;

The father yearns in the true prince's breast.
We grant, an o'ergrown Whig no grace can mend;
But most are babes, that know not they offend.
The croud, to restless motion still inclin'd,
Are clouds, that tack according to the wind.
Driven by their chiefs they storms of hailstones pour;

Then mourn, and soften to a filent shower.

O welcome to this much-offending land,
The prince that brings forgiveness in his hand!
Thus angels on glad messages appear :

Their firft falute commands us not to fear:
Thus heaven, that could constrain us to obey,
(With reverence if we might prefume to say)
Seems to relax the rights of fovereign sway :
Permits to man the choice of good and ill,
And makes us happy by our own free-will.

}

PROLOGUE to the EARL OF ESSEX.

[By Mr. J. BANKS, 1682.]

Spoken to the King and Queen at their coming to the

W

House.

HEN first the ark was landed on the shore,
And heaven had vow'd to curse the ground no

more;

When tops of hills the longing patriarch faw,
And the new scene of earth began to draw;

The dove was sent to view the waves decrease,
And first brought back to man the pledge of peace.

'Tis needless to apply, when those appear,

Who bring the olive, and who plant it here.

We have before our eyes the royal dove,

Still innocent as harbinger of love:

The ark is open'd to dismiss the train,

And people with a better race the plain.

Tell me, ye powers, why should vain man purfue,

With endless toil, each object that is new,
And for the seeming substance leave the true ?
Why should he quit for hopes his certain good,

}

And loath the manna of his daily food?
Must England still the scene of changes be,
Toft and tempestuous, like our ambient sea ?
Must still our weather and our wills agree?

}

Without our blood our liberties we have:

Who that is free would fight to be a flave?

Ог,

Or, what can wars to after-times affure,

Of which our present age is not fecure ?
All that our monarch would for us ordain,
Is but t' enjoy the bleffings of his reign.
Our land's an Eden, and the main's our fence,
While we preferve our state of innocence :
That loft, then beasts their brutal force employ,
And first their lord, and then themselves destroy.
What civil broils have cost, we know too well;
Oh! let it be enough that once we fell!
And every heart conspire, and every tongue,
Still to have fuch a king, and this king long.

XVI.

An EPILOGUE for the King's House.

WE

E act by fits and starts, like drowning men,
But just peep up, and then pop down again.

Let those who call us wicked change their fenfe;
For never men liv'd more on Providence.

Not lottery cavaliers are half so poor,
Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore.
Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents
Of the three last ungiving parliaments :

So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine,

He might have spar'd his dream of seven lean kine,
And chang'd his vision for the Muses nine.

}

The comet, that, they fay, portends a dearth,

Was bnt a vapour drawn from play-house earth: