THUS

XXXIV.

EPILOGUE to HENRY II.

[By Mr. MoUNT FORT, 1693.]
Spoken by Mrs. BRACEGIRDLE.

HUS you the fad catastrophe have seen,
Occafion'd by a mistress and a queen.
Queen Eleanor the proud was French, they say;
But English manufacture got the day.
Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver:
Fair Rofamond was but her Nom de guerre.
Now tell me, gallants, would you lead your life
With fuch a miftrefs, or with fuch a wife?
If one must be your choice, which d'ye approve,
The curtain lecture, or the curtain love?
Would ye be godly with perpetual ftrife,
Still drudging on with homely Joan your wife:
Or take your pleasure in a wicked way,
Like honest whoring Harry in the play?
I guess your minds: the mistress would be taken,
And naufeous matrimony fent a packing.
The devil's in you all; mankind's a rogue;
You love the bride, but you deteft the clog.
After a year, poor fpoufe is left i' th' lurch,
And you, like Haynes, return to mother-church.
Or, if the name of Church comes crofs your mind,
Chapels of eate behind our scenes you find.

The playhoufe is a kind of market-place;
One chaffers for a voice, another for a face:

many,

Nay, fome of you, I dare not fay how
Would buy of me a pen'worth for your penny.
Ev'n this poor face, which with my fan I hide,
Would make a fhift my portion to provide,
With fome small perquifites I have befide.
Though for your love, perhaps, I fhould not care,
I could not hate a man that bids me fair.
What might enfue, 'tis hard for me to tell;
But I was drench'd to-day for loving well,
And fear the poison that would make me fwell.

XXXV.

A PROLOGUE.

GALLANTS, a bafhful poet bids me fay,

He's come to lofe 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 suffering part of resolution,
And comes with blushes to his execution.

Ere
you deflower his Mufe, he hopes the pit
Will make fome fettlement upon his wit.
Promife 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 leave him after being frail,

you

He'll have, at least, a fair pretence to rail:
To call you bafe, and fwear you us’d him ill,
And put you in the new deferters bill.
Lord, what a troop of perjur'd men we fee;
Enow to fill another Mercury!

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But

But this the ladies may with patience, brook :
Theirs are not the first colours you forfook.
He would be loth the beauties to offend;
But, if he fhould, he's not too old to mend.
He's a young plant, in his first year of bearing;
But his friend fwears, he will be worth the rearing.
His glofs is ftill 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 leaft.
Mangos and limes, whofe nourishment is little,
Though not for food, are yet preferv'd for pickle.
So this green writer may pretend, at least,
To whet your ftomachs 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 woo'd, and woo;

With arms offensive and defensive too;
'Tis hard, he thinks, if neither part will do.

XXXVI.

PROLOGUE TO ALBUMA ZA R.

O fay, this Comedy pleas'd long ago,

Is not enough to make it pafs you now.
Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit;
When few men cenfur'd, and when fewer writ.

And Jonfon, of those few the best, chofe 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 fuch authors does afford,

As make whole plays, and yet fearce write one word:
Who, in this anarchy of wit, rob all,

And what's their plunder, their poffeffion call:
Who, like bold padders, fcorn by night to prey,
But rob by fun-fhine, in the face of day:
Nay fcarce the common ceremony ufe

Of, Stand, Sir, and deliver up your Mufe;
But knock the Poet down, and, with a grace,
Mount Pegasus 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 modeft, could it but be faid,
They ftrip the living, but thefe rob the dead;
Dare with the mummies of the Mufes play,
And make love to them the Egyptian way;
Or, as a rhyming author would have faid,
Join the dead living to the living dead.
Such men in Poetry may claim fome part:

They have the licence, though they want the art;

And

And might, where theft was prais'd, for Laureats ftand,. Poets, not of the head, but of the hand.

A

They make the benefits of others studying,

Much like the meals of politic Jack-Pudding,

Whofe difh 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 ftill undiscover'd think,
And durft not fteal, unless you pleafe to wink.
Perhaps, you may award by your decree,
They fhould refund; but that can never be.
For fhould you letters of reprifal feal,

Thefe men write that which no man elfe would steal.

XXXVII.

AN EPILOGU E.

YOU faw our wife was chafte, yet throughly try'd,

And, without doubt, y' are hugely edify'd;

For, like our hero, whom we fhew'd to-day,
You think no woman true, but in a play..
Love once did make a pretty kind of show:
Efteem and kindness in one breaft would grow:
But 'twas Heaven knows how many years ago.
Now fome fmall-c at, and guinea expectation,
Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation :
In Comedy your little felves you meet;
'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges-ftreet.

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