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VIII.

EPILOGUE to MITHRIDATES, King of Pontus. By Mr. N. LE E, 1678.

OU'VE seen a pair of faithful lovers die :

You

And much you care; for most of you will cry,
'Twas a juft judgment on their conftancy.
For, heaven be thank'd, we live in fuch an age,
When no man dies for love, but on the stage:
And ev❜n thofe martyrs are but rare in plays;
A curfed fign how much true faith decays.
Love is no more a violent defire;
'Tis a meer metaphor, a painted fire.
In all our fex, the name examin'd well,
'Tis pride to gain, and vanity to tell.
In woman, 'tis of fubtle intereft made:
Curfe on the punk that made it first a trade !,
She firft did wit's prerogative remove,
And made a fool presume to prate of love.
Let honour and preferment go for gold;
But glorious beauty is not to be fold:
Or, if it be, 'tis at a rate fo high,
That nothing but adoring it fhould buy.

Yet the rich cullies may their boasting spare;
They purchafe but fophifticated ware.
'Tis prodigality that buys deceit,

Where both the giver and the taker cheat.
Men but refine on the old half-crown way;
And women fight, like Swiffers, for their pay.

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IX. PROLOGUE

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IX.

PROLOGUE to CESAR BORGIA.
[By Mr. N. LEE, 1680.]

'H' unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging, waftes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
What praise foe'er the poetry deserve,

Yet every fool can bid the poet starve.
That fumbling letcher to revenge is bent,
Because he thinks himfelf or whore is meant :
Name but a cuckold, all the city fwarms;
From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms:
Were there no fear of Antichrift or France,
In the bleft 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 fleep o'er wit, and by my troth you may;
Most of your talents lie another way.
You love to hear of fome 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 vaft resort,
Which whilome of Requests was called the Court;
But now the great Exchange of News 'tis hight,
And full of hum and buz from noon till night.

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Up

Up ftairs 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 fhew you better rogues upon the stage.
You know no poison but plain ratsbane here;
Death's more refin'd, 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 fnuff-box by.
Murder's a trade, fo known and practis'd there,
That 'tis infallible as is the chair.

But, mark their feast, you shall behold fuch pranks;
The pope fays grace, but 'tis the devil gives thanks.

X.

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PROLOGUE to SOPHONISBA, at Oxford, 1680.

THESPIS, the firft professor of our art,

At country wakes, fung ballads from a cart.
To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,
Dicitur & plauftris vexiffe Poemata Thespis.
But Æfchylus, fays Horace in fome page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the stage :
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport
Of toffing poets in a tennis-court,

But

But 'tis the talent of our English nation,
Still to be plotting fome new reformation:
And few years hence, if anarchy goes on,
Jack Prefbyter fhall 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 fhall go to pot,
For disbelieving of a Popish-plot :
Your poets fhall be us'd like infidels,

And worst the author of the Oxford bells:
Nor fhould we 'fcape the fentence, to depart,
Ev'n in our firft original, a cart.

No zealous brother there would want a ftone,
To maul us cardinals, and pelt pope Joan :
Religion, learning, wit, would be supprest,
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast:
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down,
As chief fupporters of the triple crown ;
And Ariftotle's for deftruction ripe;
Some fay, he call'd the foul an organ-pipe,
Which by fome little help of derivation,
Shall then be prov'd a pipe of inspiration.

XI.

A PROLOGUE.

IF yet there be a few that take delight

In that which reafonable men fhould write;

To them alone we dedicate this night.
The reft may fatisfy their curious itch
With city gazettes, or fome factious speech,

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Or whate'er libel, for the public good,
Stirs up the fhrove-tide crew to fire and blood.
Remove your benches, you apoftate pit,
And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit ;
Go back to your dear dancing on the rope,
Or fee what's worfe, the devil and the pope.
The plays that take on our corrupted stage,
Methinks, resemble the distracted age;
Noife, madness, all unreasonable things,
That ftrike at fenfe, as rebels do at kings.
The style of forty-one our poets write,
And you are grown to judge like forty-eight.
Such cenfures our mistaking audience make,
That 'tis almoft grown fcandalous to take.
They talk of fevers that infect the brains;
But nonfenfe is the new difeafe that reigns.
Weak ftomachs, with a long difsease oppreft,
Cannot the cordials of ftrong wit digeft.
Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye
Decoctions of a barley-water Mufe:
A meal of tragedy would make you fick,
Unless it were a very tender chick.

choose,

Some feenes in fippets would be worth our time;

Those would go down; fome love that's poach'd in

rhyme ;

If these fhould fail

We must lie down, and, after all our coft,

Keep holiday, like watermen in frost;

While you turn players on the world's great stage,
And act yourselves the farce of your own age.

VOL. II.

R

XII. EPILOGUE

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