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PROLOGUE. FULL 1 twenty years and more, our lab’ring Stage | |
| Has lost, on this incorrigible age: | |
| Our Poets, the John Ketches of the Nation, | |
| Have seem’d to lash yee ev’n to excoriation: | |
| But still no sign remains; which plainly notes | 5 |
| You bore like Hero’s or you brib’d like Oates. | |
| What can we do, when mimicking a Fop, | |
| Like beating Nut-trees, makes a larger Crop? | |
| Faith, we’ll e’en spare our pains, and to content you, | |
| We’ll fairly leave you what your Maker meant you. | 10 |
| Satyre was once your Physick, Wit your Food; | |
| One nourisht not, and t’ other drew no Blood. | |
| Wee now prescribe, like Doctors in despair, | |
| The Diet your weak appetites can bear. | |
| Since hearty Beef and Mutton will not do, | 15 |
| Here’s Julep dance, Ptisan of Song and show: | |
| Give you strong Sense, the Liquor is too heady; | |
| You’re come to farce, that’s Asses’ Milk, already. | |
| Some hopeful Youths there are of callow Wit, | |
| Who one day may be Men, if Heav’n think fit; | 20 |
| Sound may serve such, ere they to Sense are grown; | |
| Like leading strings, till they can walk alone. | |
| But yet, to keep our Friends in count’nance, know, | |
| The Wise Italians first invented show; | |
| Thence into France the Noble Pageant past; | 25 |
| ’Tis England’s Credit to be cozn’d last. | |
| Freedom and Zeal have chous’d you o’er and o’er; | |
| ’Pray give us leave to bubble you once more; | |
| You never were so cheaply fool’d before. | |
| We bring you change, to humour your Disease; | 30 |
| Change for the Worse has ever used to please: | |
| Then ’tis the mode of France, without whose Rules | |
| None must presume to set up here for Fools: | |
| In France, the oldest Man is always young, | |
| Sees Opera’s daily, learns the Tunes so long, | 35 |
| Till Foot, Hand, Head, keep Time with ev’ry Song. | |
| Each sings his part, echoing from Pit and Box, | |
| With his hoarse Voice, half Harmony, half Pox. | |
| Le plus grand Roy du Monde, is always ringing; | |
| They show themselves good Subjects by their singing. | 40 |
| On that Condition, set up every Throat; | |
| You Whiggs may sing, for you have chang’d your Note. | |
| Cits and Citesses, raise a joyful Strain, | |
| ’Tis a good Omen to begin a Reign: | |
| Voices may help your Charter to restoring, | 45 |
| And get by singing, what you lost by roaring. | |
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EPILOGUE After our Æsop’s Fable shown to day, | |
| I come to give the Moral of the play. | |
| Feign’d Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier pace; | |
| But, the last Heat, Plain Dealing won the Race: | 50 |
| Plain Dealing for a Jewel has been known; | |
| But ne’er till now the Jewel of a Crown. | |
| When Heav’n made Man, to show the work Divine, | |
| Truth was his Image, stampt upon the Coin: | |
| And, when a King is to a God refin’d, | 55 |
| On all he says and does, he stamps his Mind. | |
| This proves a Soul without allay, and pure; | |
| Kings, like their Gold, should every touch endure. | |
| To dare in Fields is Valour; but how few | |
| Dare be so thoroughly Valiant to be true? | 60 |
| The Name of Great let other Kings affect: | |
| He’s Great indeed, the Prince that is direct. | |
| His Subjects know him now, and trust him more, | |
| Than all their Kings, and all their Laws before. | |
| What safety could their publick Acts afford? | 65 |
| Those he can break, but cannot break his Word. | |
| So great a Trust to him alone was due; | |
| Well have they trusted whom so well they knew. | |
| The Saint, who walk’d on Waves, securely trod, | |
| While he believ’d the beckning of his God; | 70 |
| But, when his Faith no longer bore him out, | |
| Began to sink, as he began to doubt. | |
| Let us our native Character maintain, | |
| ’Tis of our Growth to be sincerely plain. | |
| T’ excel in Truth we Loyally may strive, | 75 |
| Set Privilege against Prerogative: | |
| He Plights his Faith, and we believe him just: | |
| His Honour is to Promise, ours to Trust. | |
| Thus Britain’s Basis on a Word is laid, | |
| As by a Word the World it self was made. | 80 |
