The reft may fatisfy their curious Itch
With City Gazettes, or some Factious Speech,
Or what-e'er Libel, for the Publick Good,
Stirs up the Shrove-tide Crew to Fire and Blood.
Remove your Benches, you Apoftate Pit,
And take, above, twelve penny-worth of Wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the Rope,
Or fee what's worse, the Devil and the Pope.
The Plays that take on our Corrupted Stage,
Methinks, refemble the distracted Age;
Noife, Madnefs, all unreasonable Things,
'That strike at Senfe, as Rebels do at Kings.
The ftyle 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 Scandalous to Take.
They talk of Fevers that infect the Brains;
But Nonfenfe is the new Disease that reigns.
Weak Stomachs, with a long Disease oppreft,
Cannot the Cordials of strong Wit digeft.
Therefore thin Nourishment of Farce ye choose,
Decoctions of a Barley-water Muse:
A Meal of Tragedy would make ye fick,
Unless it were a very tender Chick.
Some Scenes in Sippets wou'd be worth our time;
Those would go down; fome Love that's poach'd in
We must lie down, and, after all our coft,
Keep Holy-day, like Water-men in Froft;
While you turn Players on the World's great Stage, And Act your felves the Farce of your own Age.
EPILOGUE to a Tragedy called
TAMERLANE.
(By Mr. SAUNDERS.)
Ladies, the Beardless Author one of his
Commends to you the Fortune of his Play.
A Woman Wit has often grac'd the Stage;
But he's the firft Boy-Poet of our Age.
Early as is the Year his Fancies blow,
Like young Narciffus peeping through the Snow.
Thus Cowley bloffom'd foon, yet flourish'd long;
This is as forward, and may prove as strong.
Youth with the Fair fhould always Favour find,
Or we are damn'd Diffemblers of our kind.
What's all this Love they put into our Parts ?
'Tis but the pit-a-pat of Two young Hearts.
Should Hag and Gray- Beard make fuch tender moan,
Faith, you'd e'en truft 'em to themselves alone,
And cry, Let's go, here's nothing to be done.
Since Love's our Bufinefs, as 'tis
your Delight,
The Young, who beft can practise, best can write.
What though he be not come to his full Pow'r,
He's mending and improving every Hour.
You fly She-Jockies of the Box and Pit,
Are pleas'd to find a hot unbroken Wit:
By management he may in time be made,
But there's no hopes of an old batter'd Jade;
Faint and unnerv'd he runs into a Sweat,
And always fails you at the Second Heat.
OU 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;
Esteem and Kindness in one Breast would grow:
But 'twas Heav'n knows how many years ago.
Now fome fmall Chat, and Guinea Expectation,
Gets all the pretty Creatures in the Nation :
In Comedy your little Selves you meet ;
'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges-freet.
Smile on our Author then, if he has shown
A jolly Nut-brown Baftard of your own.
Ah! happy you, with Eafe and with Delight,
Who act thofe Follies, Poets toil to write !
The fweating Mufe does almoft leave the Chace :
She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean Vices pace.
Pinch you but in one Vice, away you fly
To fome new Frisk of Contrariety.
You rowl like Snow-Balls, gathering as you run,
And get feven Dev'ls, when difpoffefs'd of one.
Your Venus once was a Platonick Queen ;
Nothing of Love befide the Face was feen;
But every Inch of her you now Uncafe,
And clap a Vizard-Mask upon the Face.
For Sins like these, the Zealous of the Land,
With little Hair, and little or no Band,
Declare how circulating Peftilences
Watch, every Twenty Years, to fnap Offences.
Saturn, e'en now, takes Doctoral Degrees ;
He'll do your work this Summer, without Fees.
Let all the Boxes, Phœbus, find thy Grace,
And, ah, preferve the Eighteen-penny Place!
But for the Pit Confounders, let 'em go,
And find as little Mercy as they show :
The Actors thus, and thus thy Poets Pray ;
For ev'ry Critick fav'd, thou damn't a Play.
PROLOOUE to the PROPHETES S. (By Beaumont and Fletcher. Revived by Mr. Dryden.) Spoken by Mr. BETTERTON.
Hat Noftradame, with all his Art, can guess
The Fate of our approaching Prophetess ?
A Play, which, like a Perspective fet right,
Prefents our vaft Expences clofe to Sight;
But turn the Tube, and there we fadly view
Our distant Gains; and those uncertain too :
A fweeping Tax, which on our felves we raise,
And all, like you, in hopes of better Days,
When will our Loffes warn us to be Wife?
Our Wealth decreases, and our Charges rife.
Money, the sweet Allurer of our Hopes,
Ebbs out in Oceans, and comes in by Drops.
We raise new Objects to provoke Delight;
But you grow fated, ere the fecond Sight.
Falfe Men, e'en fo you ferve your Mistreffes:
They rife three Stories in their Tow'ring Dress;
And, after all, you Love not long enough
To pay the Rigging, ere you leave 'em off.
Never content with what you had before,
But true to Change, and English Men all o'er.
Now Honour Calls you hence; and all your Care
Is to provide the horrid Pomp of War.
In Plume and Scarf, Jack-Boots, and Bilbo Blade,
Your Silver goes, that fhou'd fupport our Trade.
Go, unkind Heroes, leave our Stage to mourn;
'Till rich from vanquish'd Rebels you return;
And the fat Spoils of Teague in Triumph draw,
His Firkin-Butter, and his Ufquebaugh.
Go, Conqu'rors of your Male and Female Foes;
Men without Hearts, and Women without Hose.
Each bring his Love a Bogland Captive home;
Such proper Pages will long Trains become ;
With Copper Collars, and with Brawny Backs,
Quite to put down the Fashion of our Blacks.
Then fhall the Pious Mufes pay their Vows,
And furnish all their Laurels for your Brows ;
Their tuneful Voice shall raise for your Delights;
We want not Poets fit to fing your Fights.
But you, bright Beauties, for whofe only fake
Thofe Doughty Knights fuch Dangers undertake,
When they with happy Gales are gone away,
With your propitious Prefence grace our Play ;
And with a Sigh their Empty Seats furvey:
Then think, on that bare Bench my Servant fat;
I fee him Ogle ftill, and hear him Chat;
Selling facetious Bargains, and propounding
That witty Recreation, call'd Dum-founding.
Their Lofs with Patience we will try to bear;
And wou'd do more, to fee you often here:
That our dead Stage, reviv'd by your fair Eyes,
Under a Female Regency may rise.
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