THE WILD BOAR'S DEFENCE.

A

BOAR who had enjoy'd a happy reign

For many a year, and fed on many a man,
Call'd to account, foftening his favage eyes,
Thus fuppliant, pleads his caufe before he dies.

For what am I condemn'd? My crime's no more
To eat a man, than yours to eat a boar:
We feek not you, but take what chance provides,
Nature, and mere neceffity our guides.
You murder us in fport, then dish us up
For drunken feafts, a relish for the cup :
We lengthen not our meals; but you must feast,
Gorge till your bellies burft-pray who's the beaft?
With your humanity you keep a fuss,
But are in truth worfe brutes than all of us;
We prey not on our kind, but you, dear brother,
Moft beastly of all beafts, devour each other:
Kings worry kings, neighbour with neighbour ftrives,
Fathers and fons, friends, brothers, husbands, wives,
By fraud or force, by poifon, fword, or gun,
Deftroy each other, every mother's fon.

FOR LIBERALITY.

T HOUGH fafe thou think'st thy treasure lies,

Hidden in chefts from human eyes,

A fire may come, and it may be
Bury'd, my friend, as far from thee.

Thy veffel that yon ocean stems,

Loaded with golden duft, and gems,
Purchas'd with so much pains and caft,
Yet in a tempeft may be loft.

Pimps, whores and bawds, a thankless crew,
Priests, Pick-pockets, and lawyers too,
All help by feveral ways to drain,
Thanking themselves for what they gain :
The liberal are fecure alone,

For what we frankly give, for ever is our own.

Co

CORINNA.
NORINNA, in the bloom of youth
Was coy to every lover,
Regardless of the tendereft truth,
No foft complaint could move her.
Mankind was hers, all at her feet
Lay proftrate and adoring;

The witty, handfome, rich, and great,
In vain alike imploring.

But now grown old, fhe would repair
Her lofs of time, and pleature;
With willing eyes, and wanton air,
Inviting every gazer.

But love's a fummer flower, that dies
With the first weather's changing,
The lover, like the fwallow, flies
From fun to fun, ftill ranging.
Myra, let this example move
Your foolish heart to reafon;
Youth is the proper time for love,
And age is virtue's feafon.

WH

HY pines my dear? To Fulvia his young bride,
Who weeping fat, thus aged Cornus cry'd.
Alas! faid fhe, fuch vifions break my reft,
The strangeft thoughts! I think I am poffeft:
My fymptoms I have told to men of skill,
And if I would-they fay-I might be well.

Take their advice, faid he, my poor dear wife,
Blufhing, the would excufe, but all in vain,
I'll buy at any rate thy precious life.
A Doctor must be fetch'd to eafe her pain.
Hard prefs'd, the yields: From White's, or Will's,
or Tom's,

No matter which, he's fummon'd, and he comes.
The careful husband, with a kind embrace,
Entreats his care: then bows, and quits the place:
For little ailments oft attend the fair,

Something the dame would fay: The ready Knight
Not decent for a husband's eye, or ear.
Prevents her speech-Here's that fhall fet you right
Madam, faid he-with that the doors made clofe,
He gives deliciously the healing dose.
Alas! the cries: ah me! O cruel cure!
Did ever woman yet like me endure ?
The work perform'd, up rifing gay and light,
Old Cornus is called in to fee the fight;
A fprightly red vermillions all her face,
And her eyes languish with unusual grace:
With tears of joy fresh gufhing from his eyes,
O wond'rous power of art! old Cornus cries;
Amazing change! aftonishing fuccefs!

Thrice happy 1! What a brave Doctor's this!
Maids, wives, and widows, with such whims oppreft,
May thus find certain ease.—Probatum eft.

ON AN ILL-FAVOURED LORD.

TH

HAT Macro's looks are good, let no man doubt,
Which I, his friend and fervant-thus make out,
In every line of his perfidious face,

The fecret malice of his heart we trace;
So fair the warning, and fo plainly writ,
Let none condemn the light that shows a pit.
Cocles, whofe face finds credit for his heart,
Who can escape so smooth a villain's art?
Adorn'd with every grace that can perfuade,
Seeing we truft, though fure to be betray'd;
His looks are fnares: But Macro's, cry Beware,
Believe not, though ten thousand oaths he swear
If thou 'rt deceiv'd, obferving well this rule,
Not Macro is the knave, but thou the fool.
In this one point, he and his looks agree,
As they betray their mafter-fo did he.

CLOE.

When more indulgent to the writers eafe,
You are too good to be fo hard to please ;
No fuch convulfive pangs it will require
To write the pretty things which you admire.

Our author then, to please you in your way,
Prefents you now a bauble of a play :
In jingling rhyme, well fortifi'd and strong,
He fights entrench'd o'er head and ears in fong.
If here and there fome evil-fated line,
Should chance through inadvertency to shine,
Forgive him, Beaux, he means you no offence,
But begs you for the love of fong and dance,
To pardon all the poetry and fenfe.

ANOTHER EPILOGUE,
Defigned for the fame.

WIT

IT once, like Beauty, without art or drefs,
Naked, and unadorn'd, could find fuccefs,
Till by fruition, novelty deftroy'd,
The nymph muft find new charms to be enjoy'd.
As by his equipage the man you prize,

And ladies must have gems befide their eyes :
So fares it too with plays; in vain we write,
Unless the mufic and the dance invite,
Scarce Hamlet clears the charges of the night.
Would you but fix fome ftandard how to move,
We would transform to any thing you love;
Judge our defire by our coft and pains,
Sure the expence, uncertain are the gains.
But though we fetch from Italy and France
Our fopperies of tune, and mode of dance,
Our sturdy Britons scorn to borrow sense:
Howe'er to foreign fashions we fubmit,
Still every fop prefers his mother wit.
In only wit this conftancy is shown,
For never was that arrant changeling known,
Who for another's fenfe would quit his own.

Our author would excufe these youthful scenes,
Begotten at his entrance in his teens :
Some childish fancies may approve the toy,
Some like the Mufe the more for being a boy;
And ladies fhould be pleas'd, if not content,
To find fo young a thing, not wholly impotent.
Our stage-reformers too he would disarm,
In charity fo cold, in zeal fo warm;
And therefore to atone for ftage abuses,

And gain the church-indulgence for the Mufes,
He gives his thirds-to charitable uses.

PROLOGUE

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Thus critics fhould, like thefe, be branded foes,
Who for the poifon only, fuck the rose;
Snarling and carping, without wit or sense;
Impeach mistakes, o'erlooking excellence,
As if to every fop it might belong,
Like fenators to cenfure, right or wrong.

But generous minds have more heroic views,
And Love and Honour are the themes they choose.
From yon bright heaven our author fetch'd his fire
And paints the paffions that your eyes infpire :
Full of that flame, his tender fcenes he warms,
And frames his Goddess by your matchless charms.

EPILOGUE

To the Jew of Venice.

ACH in his turn, the Poet †, and the Priest §,
Have viewed the ftage, but like false prophets
guefs'd.

The man of zeal, in his religious rage,
Would filence poets, and reduce the stage;
The poet, rafhly to get clear, retorts
On kings the fcandal, and befpatters courts.
Both err: for without mincing, to be plain,
The guilt's your own of every odious scene:
The prefent time ftill gives the ftage its mode,
The vices that you practice, we explode;
We hold the glass, and but reflect your shame,
Like Spartans, by expofing, to reclaim.
The fcribbler, pinch'd with hunger, writes to dine,
And to your genius must conform his line;
Not lewd by choice, but merely to fubmit:

Would you encourage fenfe, fenfe would be writ.
Good plays we try, which after the first day,
Unfeen we act, and to bare benches play;
Plain fenfe, which pleas'd your fires an age ago,
Is loft, without the garniture of show:
At vaft expence we labour to our ruin,
And court your favour with our own undoing;
A war of profit mitigates the evil,

But to be tax'd and beaten-is the devil.
How was the scene forlorn, and how defpis'd,
When Timon, without mufic, moraliz'd?
Shakespeare's fublime in vain entic'd the throng,
Without the aid of Purcel's fyren song.

In the fame antique loom these scenes were wrought,
Embellish'd with good morals, and just thought;
True Nature in her noblest light you fee,
Ere yet debauch'd by modern gallantry,
To trifling jefts, and fulfome ribaldry.
What ruft remains upon the shining mass,

To Mr. Bevil Higgon's excellent Tragedy, called the Antiquity muft privilege to pass.

Generous Conqueror.

OUR comic writer is a common foe,

Yo

None can intrigue in peace, or be a beau,

Nor wanton wife, nor widow can be fped,

Not even Ruffel can inter the dead,

But ftraight this cenfor, in his whim of wit,
Strips, and prefents you naked to the Pit.

*Ruffel, a famous undertaker for funerals; alluding to a Comedy written by Sir Richard Steele, entitled, The Funeral.

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'Tis Shakespeare's play, and if these scenes miscarry, Let Gormon take the stage-or Lady Mary †.

To the Ladies.

Mr. Dryden's Prologue to the Pilgrim.
§ Mr, Collier's View of the Stage.
A famous prize-fighter.

A famous rope-dancer fo called.

PRO