Fools you will have, and rais'd at vast expence ;
And yet, as foon as feen, they give offence.
Time was, when none would cry, That oaf was me;
But now you ftrive about your pedigree.
Bauble and cap no fooner are thrown down,
But there's a mufs of more than half the town.
Each one will challenge a child's part at least;
A fign the family is weli increas'd.
Of foreign cattle there's no longer need,
When we're supply'd so fast with English breed.
Well! flourish, countrymen, drink, fwear, and roar;
Let every free-born subject keep his whore,
And wandering in the wilderness about,
At end of forty years not wear her out.
But when you fee these pictures, let none dare
To own beyond a limb or fingle share:
For where the punk is common, he's a fot,
Who needs will father what the parish got.
PROLOGUE to ARVIRAGUS and PHILICIA
[By LODOWICK CARLELL, Efq.]
Spoken by Mr. HART.
WITH fickly actors and an old houfe too,
We're match'd with glorious theatres and new,
And with our alehoufe fcenes, and cloaths bare worn,
Can neither raise old plays, nor new adorn.
If all thefe ills could not undo us quite,
A brifk French troop is grown your dear delight;
Who with broad bloody bills call you each day,
To laugh and break your buttons at their play;
Or fee fome ferious piece, which we presume
Is fallen from fome incomparable plume;
And therefore, Meffieurs, if you'll do us grace,
Send lacquies early to prefèrve your place.
We dare not on your privilege intrench,
Or ask you why ye like them? they are French.
Therefore fome go with courtefy exceeding,
Neither to hear nor fee, but fhew their breeding :
Each lady ftriving to out-laugh the rest ;
To make it feem they understood the jest.
Their countrymen come in, and nothing pay,
To teach us English where to clap the play :
Civil, egad! our hofpitable land
Bears all the charge, for them to understand :
Mean time we languish, and neglected lie,
Like wives, while you keep better company;
And wish for your own fakes, without a fatire,
You'd lefs good breeding, or had more good-nature.
PROLOGUE to the PROPHETESS.
By BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
Revived by Mr. DRY DEN.
Spoken by Mr. BETTERTON.
HAT Noftradame, with all his art, can guess
The fate of our approaching Prophetess?
A play, which, like a perfpective fet right,
Prefents our vaft expences close to fight;
But turn the tube, and there we fadly view
Our diftant gains; and those uncertain too:
A fweeping tax, which on ourselves we raife,
And all, like you, in hopes of better days.
When will our loffes warn us to be wife?
Our wealth decreases, and our charges rise.
Money, the fweet allurer of our hopes,
Ebbs out in oceans, and comes in by drops.
We raise new objects to provoke delight;
But you grow fated, ere the fecond fight.
Falfe men, ev'n fo you ferve
your miftreffes:
They rife three stories in their towering drefs
And, after all, you love not long enough
To pay the rigging, ere you leave them off.
Never content with what you had before,
But true to change, and Englishmen all o'er.
Now honour calls you hence; and all your care
Is to provide the horrid pomp
In plume and scarf, jack-boots, and Bilboa blade,
Your filver goes, that should support our trade.
Go, unkind heroes, leave our stage to mourn;
Till rich from vanquish'd rebels you return;
And the fat fpoils of Teague in triumph draw,
His firkin-butter, and his ufquebaugh.
Go, conquerors of your male and female foes;
Men without hearts, and women without hose.
Each bring his love a Bogland captive home;
Such proper pages will long trains become;
With copper collars, and with brawny backs,
Quite to put down the fashion of our blacks.
Then fhall, the pious Muses pay their vows,
And furnish all their laurels for your brows;
Their tuneful voice fhall raife for your delights:
We want not poets fit to fing your flights.
But you, bright beauties, for whose only fake
Those doughty knights such dangers undertake,
When they with happy gales are gone away,
With your propitious prefence grace our play;
And with a figh their empty feats furvey:
Then think, on that bare bench my servant satz
I fee him ogle ftill, and hear him chat;
Selling facetious bargains, and propounding
That witty recreation, call'd dum-founding.
Their lofs with patience we will try to bear;
And would do more, to see you often here:
That our dead stage, reviv'd by your fair eyes,
Under a female regency may rife.
PROLOGUE TO THE MISTAKES.
Gentlemen, we must beg your pardon; here's no
Prologue to be had to-day; our new play is like to come on, without a frontispiece; as bald as one of you young beaux, without your periwig. I left our young poet, fniveling and fobbing behind the fcenes, and curfing fomebody that has deceived him.
Hold your prating to the audience: here's honeft Mr. Williams, just come in, half mellow, from the RoféTavern. He fwears he is infpired with claret, and will come on, and that extempore too, either with a prologue of his own, or fomething like one: O here he comes to his trial, at all adventures; for my part, I wish him a good deliverance.
[Exeunt Mr. Bright and Mr. Borven.
Save ye firs, fave ye! I am in a hopeful way.
I fhould fpeak fomething, in rhyme, now, for the
Bat the duce take me, if I know what to say.
I'll stick to my friend the author, that I can tell ye,
To the last drop of claret, in my belly.
So far I'm fure 'tis rhyme-that needs no granting:
And, if my verses feet ftumble-you fee my own are
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