Nay, fome of you, I dare not say how many,
Would buy of me a pen'worth for your penny.
Ev'n this poor face, which with my fan I hide,
Would make a shift my portion to provide,
With fome small perquisites I have beside.
Though for your love, perhaps, I should not care,
I could not hate a man that bids me fair.
What might ensue, 'tis hard for me to tell;
But I was drench'd to-day for loving well,
And fear the poison that would make me swell.
He's come to lose his maidenhead to-day..
Be not too fierce; for he's but green of age,
And ne'er, till now, debauch'd upon the stage..
He wants the fuffering part of resolution,
And comes with blushes to his execution.
Ere you deflower his Muse, he hopes the pit
Will make fome settlement upon his wit.
Promise him well, before the play begin :
For he would fain be cozen'd into fin.
'Tis not but that he knows you mean to fail;
But, if you leave him after being frail,
He'll have, at least, a fair pretence to rail :
To call you base, and swear you us'd him ill,
And put you in the new deserters bill.
Lord, what a troop of perjur'd men we fee;
Enow to fill another Mercury!
But this the ladies may with patience brook :
Theirs are not the first colours you forsook.
He would be loth the beauties to offend;
But, if he should, he's not too old to mend.
He's a young plant, in his first year of bearing;
But his friend swears, he will be worth the rearing.
His glofs is still upon him: though 'tis true
He's yet unripe, yet take him for the blue.
You think an apricot half green is beft;
There's fweet and four, and one fide good at least.
Mangos and limes, whose nourishment is little,
Though not for food, are yet preferv'd for pickle..
So this green writer may pretend, at least,
To whet your stomachs for a better feaft.
He makes this difference in the fexes too;
He fells to men, he gives himself to you.
To both he would contribute fome delight;
A meer poetical hermaphrodite.
Thus he's equipp'd, both to be wood, and woo;
With arms offenfive and defenfive too;
'Tis hard, he thinks, if neither part will do.
PROLOGUE TO ALBUMAZAR.
To fay, this Comedy pleas'd long ago,
Is not enough to make it pass you now.
Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit;
When few men cenfur'd, and when fewer writ,
And Jonfon, of those few the best, chose this, As the best model of his master-piece : Subtle was got by our Albumazar, That Alchemist by this Aftrologer; Here he was fashion'd, and we may suppose He lik'd the fashion well, who wore the clothes. But Ben made nobly his what he did mould; What was another's lead, becomes his gold : Like an unrighteous conqueror he reigns, Yet rules that well, which he unjustly gains. But this our age such authors does afford, As make whole plays, and yet scarce write one word: Who, in this anarchy of wit, rob all, And what's their plunder, their poffeffion call: Who, like bold padders, scorn by night to prey, But rob by fun-shine, in the face of day: Nay fcarce the common ceremony use Of, Stand, Sir, and deliver up your Muse; But knock the Poet down, and, with a grace, Mount Pegafus before the owner's face. Faith, if you have fuch country Toms abroad, 'Tis time for all true men to leave that road. Yet it were modest, could it but be faid, They strip the living, but these rob the dead; Dare with the mummies of the Muses play, And make love to them the Ægyptian way; Or, as a rhyming author would have faid, Join the dead living to the living dead. Such men in Poetry may claim some part: They have the licence, though they want the art;
And might, where theft was prais'd, for Laureats stand,
Poets, not of the head, but of the hand.
They make the benefits of others studying,
Much like the meals of politic Jack-Pudding,
Whofe dish to challenge no man has the courage;
Tis all his own, when once he has spit i' th' porridge.
But, gentlemen, you 're all concern'd in this;
You are in fault for what they do amifs :
For they their thefts still undiscover'd think,
And durft not steal, unless you please to wink.
Perhaps, you may award by your decree,
They should refund; but that can never be.
For should you letters of reprisal feal,
These men write that which no man else would steal.
OU faw our wife was chaste, yet throughly try'd,
And, without doubt, y' are hugely edify'd;
For, like our hero, whom we shew'd to-day,
You think no woman true, but in a play.
Love once did make a pretty kind of show :
Esteem and kindness in one breast would grow :
But 'twas Heaven knows how many years ago.
Now fome small-chat, and guinea expectation,
Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation :
In Comedy your little selves you meet;
'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges-ftrcet.
Smile on our author then, if he has shown
A jolly nut-brown bastard of your own.
Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight,
Who act those follies, Poets toil to write!
The sweating Muse does almost leave the chace;
She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vices pace.
Pinch you but in one vice, away you fly
To fome new frisk of contrariety.
You roll like snow-balls, gathering as you run;
And get seven devils, when difpoffefs'd of one..
Your Venus once was a Platonic queen;
Nothing of love befide the face was feen;
But every inch of her you now uncafe,
And clap a vizard-mask upon the face :
For fins like these, the zealous of the land,
With little hair, and little or no band,
Declare how circulating pestilences
Watch, every twenty years, to snap offences..
Saturn, ev'n now, takes doctoral degrees;
He'll do your work this summer without fees.
Let all the boxes, Phœbus, find thy grace,
And, ah, preserve the eighteen-penny place!
But for the pit confounders, let them go,
And find as little mercy as they show :
The Actors thus, and thus thy Poets pray;
For every critic sav'd, thou damn'st a play.
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