Time was when none would cry, That oaf was me,
But now you strive about your pedigree.
Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down,
But there's a muss of more than half the Town.
Each one will challenge a child's part at least :
A sign the family is well increas'd.
Of foreign cattle there's no longer need,
When we're supply'd so fast with English breed.
Well! flourish, Countrymen! drink, swear, and roar,
Let ev'ry free-born subject keep his whore,
And, wand'ring in the wilderness about,
At end of forty years not wear her out.
But when you see these pictures, let none dare
To own beyond a limb or single share;
For where the punk is common, he's a sot
Who needs will father what the parish got.
PROLOGUE to ARVIRAGUS AND PHILICIA. Revived by LODOWIC CARLELL, Esq. Spoken by Mr. HAPT.
WITH sickly actors, and an old house too.
We're match'd with glorious theatres and new;
And with our alehouse scenes, and clothes bare-worn,
Can neither raise old plays nor new adorn.
If all these ills could not undo us quite,
A brisk French troop is grown your dear delight;
Who with broad bloody bills call you each day,
To laugh, and break your buttons at their play;
Or see some serious piece, which we presume
Is fall'n from some incomparable plume;
And therefore, Messieurs, if you'll do us grace,
Send lackeys early to preserve your place.
We dare not on your privilege intrench,
Or ask you why you like 'em; they are French:
Therefore some go with courtesy exceeding,
Neither to hear nor see, but show their breeding;
Each lady striving to out-laugh the rest,
To make it seem they understood the jest.
Their countrymen come in, and nothing pay;
To teach us English where to clap the play.
Civil, i'gad! our hospitable land
Bears all the charge for them to understand;
Mean-time we languish, and neglected lie,
Live wives, while you keep better company;
And wish for your own sakes, without a satire, 25
You'd less good breeding, or had more good nature.
PROLOGUE to THE PROPHETESS. By BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. Revived by Mr. DRYDEN. Spoken by Mr. BETTERTON.
WHAT Nostradame, with all his art, can guess
The fate of our approaching prophetess ?
A play which, like a perspective set right,
Presents our vast expenses close to sight;
But turn the tube, and there we sadly view
Our distant gains, and those uncertain too;
A sweeping tax, which on ourselves we raise,
And all like you, in hopes of better days.
When will our losses warn us to be wise?
Our wealth decreases, and our charges rise.
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 sated ere the second sight.
False men! e'en so you serve your mistresses;
They rise 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 Englishmen 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 should support 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 usquebaugh.
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 shall the pious Muses 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 sing your flights.
But you, bright Beauties! for whose only sake
Those doughty knights such dangers undertake, 40
When they with happy gales are gone away,
With your propitious presence grace our play,
And with a sigh their empty seats survey:
Then think on that bare bench my servant sat;
I see him ogle still, and hear him chat,
Selling facetious bargains, and propounding
That witty recreation, call'd Dum-founding.
Their loss with patience we will try to bear,
And would do more to see you often here,
That our dead stage, reviv'd by your fair eyes,
Under a female regency may rise.
PROLOGUE to THE MISTAKES. By JOSEPH HARRIS, Comedian, 1690.
GENTLEMEN, we must beg your pardon; here's no Prologue to be had to-day; our new play is like to
come on without a frontispiece: as bald as one of you young beaux without your periwig. I left our young poet snivelling and sobbing behind the scenes, and cursing somebody that has deceived him.
Hold your prating to the audience: here is honest Mr. Williams, just come in, half mellow, from the Rose-tavern. He swears he is inspired with claret, and will come on, and that extempore too, either with a prologue of his own, or something like one, O, here he comes to his trial at all adventures. my part, I wish him a good deliverance.
[Exeunt Mr. Bright and Mr. Bowen.
ENTER MR. WILLIAMS.
Save ye, Sirs, save ye! I am in a hopeful way, I should speak something, in rhyme, now, for the
But the deuce take me if I know what to say.
I'll stick to my friend the author, that I can tell ye, To the last drop of claret in my belly.
So far I'm sure 'tis rhyme-that needs no granting, And if my verses' feet stumble-you see my own are wanting.
Our young poet has brought a piece of work
In which, tho' much of art there does not lurk,
It may hold out three days-and that's as long as
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