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We bring no imperfections but our own;

Such faults as made are by the makers shown:
And you have been so kind, that we may boast,
The greatest judges still can pardon most.
Poets must stoop, when they would please our pit,
Debased ev'n to the level of their wit;

Disdaining that, which yet they know will take,
Hating themselves what their applause must make :
But when to praise from you they would aspire,
Though they like eagles mount, your Jove is higher.
So far your knowledge all their power transcends,
As what should be beyond what is extends.

TO CIRCE.

BY DR. DAVENANT. 1675.

WERE but half so wise as you
you
're severe,
Our youthful poet should not need to fear:
To his green years your censures you would suit,
Not blast the blossom, but expect the fruit.
The sex that best does pleasure understand,
Will always choose to err on the' other hand.
They check not him that's awkward in delight,
But clap the young rogue's cheek, and set him right.
Thus hearten'd well, and flesh'd upon his prey,
The youth may prove a man another day.
Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight,
Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces write;
But hopped about, and short excursions made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid,
And each was guilty of some slighted maid.

Shakspeare's own Muse her Pericles first bore;
The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor.
"Tis miracle to see a first good play:

All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas-day.
A slender poet must have time to grow,
And spread and burnish as his brothers do.
Who still looks lean, sure with some pox is curs'd;
But no man can be Falstaff-fat at first.

Then damn not, but indulge his rude essays,
Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise,
That he may get more bulk before he dies;
He's not yet fed enough for sacrifice.
Perhaps, if now your grace you will not grudge,
He may grow up to write, and you to judge.

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THE' 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 Antichrist or France,
In the bless'd 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 resort,

Which whilom of Requests was call'd 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 show you better rogues upon the stage.
You know no poison but plain ratsbane here;
Death's more refined and better bred elsewhere.
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 practised there, That 'tis infallible as is the Chair.

But, mark their feast, you shall behold such pranks; The Pope says grace, but 'tis the Devil gives thanks.

TO SOPHONISBA.

AT OXFORD, 1680.

THESPIS, the first professor of our art,
At country-wakes sung
ballads from a cart.

To

prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,
Dicitur et plaustris vixisse poëmata Thespis.
But Æschylus, says Horace, in some page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the stage;
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport
Of tossing 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 Presbyter 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 used like Infidels,
And worst, the author of the Oxford Bells:
Nor should we scape the sentence, to depart,
E'en 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 suppress'd,
Rags of the Whore, and trapping of the Beast;
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down,
As chief supporters of the Triple crown;
And Aristotle's for destruction ripe;
Some say, he call'd the soul an Organ-pipe,
Which, by some little help of derivation,
Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.

PROLOGUE.

IF 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 satisfy 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.
Remove your benches, you apostate pit,
And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the rope,
Or see what's worse, the Devil and the Pope.
The plays that take on our corrupted stage,
Methinks resemble 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 censures 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 stomachs, with a long disease oppress'd,
Cannot the cordials of strong wit digest:
Therefore thin nourishment of Farce ye choose,
Decoctions of a barley-water Muse;
A meal of Tragedy would make you sick,
Unless it were a very tender chick.

time;

Some scenes in sippets would be worth your
Those would go down; some love that's poach'd
If these should fail-
[in rhyme:

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