HO actors cannot much of learning boast,
Of all who want it, we admire it most::
We love the praises of a learned pit,
As we remotely are ally'd to wit.
We speak our poets wit, and trade in ore,
Like those, who touch upon the golden shore :
Betwixt our judges can distinction make,
Discern how much, and why, our poems take :
Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
Whether th' applause be only found or voice.
When our fop gallants, or our city folly
Clap over-loud, it makes us melancholy:
We doubt that scene which does their wonder raise,
And, for their ignorance, contemn their praise.
Judge then, if we who act, and they who write,
Should not be proud of giving you delight.
London likes grofly; but this nicer pit
Examines, fathoms all the depths of wit;
The ready finger lays on every blot ;
Knows what should justly please, and what should
Nature herself lies open to your view;
You judge by her, what draught of her is true,
Where outlines false, and colors seem too faint,
Where bunglers dawb, and where true poets paint.
But by the sacred genius of this place,
By ev'ry Muse, by each domeftic grace.
Be kind to wit, which but endeavors well,
And, where you judge, prefumes not to excel.
Our poets hither for adoption come,
As nations sued to be made free of Rome:
Not in the fuffragating tribes to stand,
But in your utmost, last, provincial band.
If his ambition may those hopes pursue,
Who with religion loves your arts and you,
Oxford to him a dearer name shall be,
Than his own mother university.
Thebes did his green, unknowing, youth engage; He chooses Athens in his riper age.
UR hero's happy in the play's conclufion;
The holy rogue at last has met confufion :
Tho Arius all along appear'd a faint,
The last act shew'd him a true Proteftant.
Eufebius, for you know I read Greek authors,
Reports, that, after all these plots and flaughters,
The court of Constantine was full of glory,
And every Trimmer turn'd addressing Tory.
They follow'd him in herds as they were mad:
When Clause was king, then all the world was glad.
Whigs kept the places they poffeft before,
And most were in a way of getting more;
Which was as much as saying, Gentlemen,
Here's power and money to be rogues again.
Indeed, there were a fort of peaking tools,
Some call them modest, but I call them fools,
Men much more loyal, tho not half so loud;
But these poor devils were cast behind the croud.
For bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence.
Befides all these, there were a fort of wights,
I think my author calls them Tekelites,
Such hearty rogues against the king and laws,
They favor'd e'en a foreign rebel's cause.
When their own damn'd design was quash'd and
At least, they gave it their good word abroad.
As many a man, who, for a quiet life,
Breeds out his bastard, not to noise his wife;
Thus o'er their darling plot these Trimmers cry;
And tho they cannot keep it in their eye,
They bind it prentice to Count Tekely.
They believe not the last plot; may I be curst,
If I believe they e'er believ'd the first.
No wonder their own plot no plot they think;
The man, that makes it, never smells the stink.
And now it comes into my head, I'll tell
Why these damn'd Trimmers lov'd the Turks fo
The original Trimmer, tho a friend to no man,
Yet in his heart ador'd a pretty woman;
He knew that Mahomet laid up for ever
Kind black-ey'd rogues, for every true believer,
And, which was more than mortal man e'er tasted, One pleasure that for threescore twelvemonths
To turn for this, may surely be forgiven :
Who'd not be circumcis'd for such a heaven ?
PROLOGUE to the DISSAPPOINTMENT:
[By Mr. SOUTHERNE, 1684.]
Spoken by Mr. BETTERTON.
OW comes it, gentlemen, that now a-days,
When all of you so shrewdly judge of plays,
Our poets tax you still with want of sense ?
All prologues treat you at your own expence.
Sharp citizens a wiser way can go;
They make you fools, but never call you so.
They, in good manners, feldom make a flip,
But treat a common whore with ladyship :
But here each faucy wit at random writes,
And uses ladies as he uses knights.
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