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.

go

No zealous brother there would want a ftone,
To maul us cardinals, and pelt pope Joan :
Religion, learning, wit, would be fuppreft,
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast:
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must down,
As chief fupporters of the triple crown ;
And Aristotle's for destruction 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 reasonable 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

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, refemble the distracted age;
Noife, maduefs, all unreasonable things,
That ftrike at fenfe, 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 almost grown scandalous to take.
They talk of fevers that infect the brains;
But nonfenfe is the new difeafe that reigns.
Weak ftomachs, with a long disease oppreft,
Cannot the cordials of ftrong wit digest.
Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye choose,
Decoctions of a barley-water Muse :

A meal of tragedy would make you fick,
Unless it were a very tender chick.

Some fcenes 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 froft;

While

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

VOL. II.

XII.

EPILOGUE to a Tragedy called TAMERLANE. [By Mr. SAUNDERS.]

LADIES, the beardlefs author of this day

Commends to you the fortune of his play.

A woman wit has often grac'd the ftage;
But he's the first boy-poet of our age.
Early as is the year his fancies blow,

Like young Narciffus peeping through the fnow.
Thus Cowley bloffom'd foon, yet flourish'd long;
This is as forward, and may prove as ftrong.
Youth with the fair should 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 grey-beard make fuch tender moan,
Faith, you'd ev'n trust them to themfelves alone,
And cry, Let's go, here's nothing to be done.
Since Love's our business, as 'tis your delight,
The young, who best can practise, best can write,
What though he be not come to his full power,
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:

may

By management he 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 fecond heat.

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XIII. PROLOCUE

XIII.

PROLOGUE to the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD, 1681.

ΤΗ

HE fam'd Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance
Orlando, and the Paladins of France,
Records, that, when our wit and fenfe is flown,
'Tis lodg'd within the circle of the moon,
In earthen jars, which one, who thither foar'd,
Set to his nofe, fnuff'd up, and was restor`d.
Whate'er the story be, the moral 's true;
The wit we loft in town, we find in you.

Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
And fill their windy heads with sober sense.
When London votes with Southwark's disagree,
Here may they find their long-loft loyalty.
Here bufy fenates, to th' old cause inclin'd,
May fnuff the votes their fellows left behind :
Your country neighbours, when their grain grows dear,
May come, and find their last provision here:
Whereas we cannot much lament our lofs,
Who neither carry'd back, nor brought one cross.
We look'd what representatives would bring;
But they help'd us, just as they did the king.
Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth
The Sibyls books to those who know their worth;
And though the first was facrific'd before,
Thefe volumes doubly will the price restore.

Our poet hade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prefcription you are kind.
He, whofe undaunted Mufe, with loyal rage,
Has never fpar'd the vices of the age,

Here finding nothing that his fpleen can raise,
Is forced to turn his fatire into praise.

XIV.

PROLOGUE to his Royal Highnefs, upon his firft Appearance at the Duke's Theatre, after his Return from Scotland, 1682.

IN

N thofe cold regions which no fummers chear,
Where brooding darkness covers half the year,
To hollow caves the fhivering natives go;
Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of fnow.
But when the tedious twilight wears away,
And ftars grow paler at th' approach of day,
The longing crowds to frozen mountains run;
Happy who first can see the glimmering fun :
The furly favage offspring difappear,
And curfe the bright fucceffor of the year.
Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence,
White foxes stay, with feeming innocence :
That crafty kind with day-light can difpenfe.
Still we are throng'd fo full with Reynard's race,
That loyal subjects scarce can find a place :
Thus modeft truth is caft behind the croud:
Truth speaks too low; hypocrify too loud.

Let