PROLOGUE SPOKEN THE FIRST DAY OF THE KING'S HOUSE ACTING AFTER THE FIRE

[The Theater Royal in Drury Lane was burnt on January 25, 1672. (See FitzGerald: A New History of the English Stage, 1882; vol. i, p. 137.) The King's Company in their distress moved to the old playhouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which had recently been vacated by their rivals, the Duke of York's Company, in favor of a new and gaudy theater in Dorset Gardens; on February 26 they gave a performance of Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money, for which Dryden wrote this prologue (Malone, I, 1, 76). The piece is printed anonymously in Westminster Drollery, the Second Part, 1672, and in Covent Garden Drollery, 1672; and, with Dryden's name, in Miscellany Poems, 1684, from which the present text and heading are taken.]

So shipwrack'd passengers escape to land, So look they, when on the bare beach they stand

Dropping and cold, and their first fear scarce o'er,

Expecting famine on a desart shore.

From that hard climate we must wait for

PROLOGUE FOR THE WOMEN WHEN THEY ACTED AT THE OLD THEATER IN LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS

[The title proves that this prologue was written between February 26, 1672, when the King's Company began performances in the old theater, and March 26, 1674, when they opened their new house in Drury Lane. It probably came near the beginning of this period; otherwise the jests in it would have lost their savor. It was first printed in Miscellany Poems, 1684.]

WERE none of you gallants e'er driven so hard,

As when the poor kind soul was under guard,

And could not do 't at home, in some by

[The date of this lively comedy, by Dryden, is fixed by the opening lines of the prologue, which apparently "allude to the equipment of the fleet which afterwards engaged the Dutch off Southwold Bay, May 28, 1672" (Malone, I, 1, 106). The play was printed in 1673. The prologue and epilogue, and the second of the two songs, were printed in the Covent Garden Drollery, 1672; both songs appear also in New Court Songs and Poems, by R. V., Gent., 1672; and the second of them in Westminster Drollery, the Second Part, 1672.]

PROLOGUE

LORD, how reform'd and quiet are we grown, Since all our braves and all our wits are

gone!

And a brisk bout, which each of them did want,

Made by mistake of mistress and gallant.
Our modest author thought it was enough
To cut you off a sample of the stuff:
He spar'd my shame, which you, I'm sure,
would not,

For you were all for driving on the plot: You sigh'd when I came in to break the sport,

And set your teeth when each design fell short.

To wives and servants all good wishes lend, But the poor cuckold seldom finds a friend. Since, therefore, court and town will take