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PROLOGUE.
Spoken by Mr. BETTERTON.
AS, 1 when some Treasurer lays down the Stick, | |
| Warrants are Sign’d for ready Mony thick, | |
| And many desperate Debentures paid, | |
| Which never had been, had his Lordship staid: | |
| So now, this Poet, who forsakes the Stage, | 5 |
| Intends to gratifie the present Age. | |
| One Warrant shall be Sign’d for every Man; | |
| All shall be Wits that will; and Beaux that can: | |
| Provided still, this Warrant be not shown, | |
| And you be Wits but to your selves alone; | 10 |
| Provided too; you rail at one another: | |
| For there’s no one Wit, will allow a Brother; | |
| Provided also; that you spare this Story, | |
| Damn all the Plays that e’re shall come before ye. | |
| If one by chance prove good in half a score, | 15 |
| Let that one pay for all, and Damn it more. | |
| For if a good one scape among the Crew, | |
| And you continue Judging as you do, | |
| Every bad Play will hope for Damning too. | |
| You might Damn this, if it were worth your pains, | 20 |
| Here’s nothing you will like; no fustian Scenes, | |
| And nothing too of—you know what he means. | |
| No double Entendrès, which you Sparks allow, | |
| To make the Ladies look—they know not how; | |
| Simply as ’twere, and knowing both together, | 25 |
| Seeming to fan their Faces in cold Weather. | |
| But here’s a Story, which no Books relate, | |
| Coin’d from our own Old Poet’s Addle-Pate. | |
| The Fable has a Moral too, if sought: | |
| But let that go; for, upon second Thought, | 30 |
| He fears but few come hither to be Taught. | |
| Yet if you will be profited, you may; | |
| And he would Bribe you too, to like his Play. | |
| He Dies, at least to us, and to the Stage, | |
| And what he has he leaves this Noble Age. | 35 |
| He leaves you, first, all Plays of his Inditing, | |
| The whole Estate which he has got by Writing. | |
| The Beaux may think this nothing but vain Praise; | |
| They’l find it something, the Testator says: | |
| For half their Love is made from scraps of Plays. | 40 |
| To his worst Foes, he leaves his Honesty; | |
| That they may thrive upon’t as much as he. | |
| He leaves his Manners to the Roaring Boys, | |
| Who come in Drunk and fill the House with noise. | |
| He leaves to the dire Critiques of his Wit | 45 |
| His Silence and Contempt of all they Writ. | |
| To Shakespear’s Critique he bequeaths the Curse, | |
| To find his faults; and yet himself make worse; | |
| A precious Reader in Poetique Schools, | |
| Who by his own Examples damns his Rules. | 50 |
| Last, for the Fair, he wishes you may be | |
| From your dull Critiques, the Lampooners free. | |
| Tho’ he pretends no Legacy to leave you, | |
| An Old Man may at least good wishes give you. | |
| Your Beauty names the Play; and may it prove, | 55 |
| To each, an Omen of Triumphant Love. | |
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EPILOGUE Now, in good Manners, nothing shou’d 2 be sed | |
| Against this Play, because the Poet’s dead. | |
| The Prologue told us of a Moral here: | |
| Wou’d I cou’d find it, but the Devil knows where. | 60 |
| If in my Part it lyes, I fear he means | |
| To warn us of the Sparks behind our Scenes. | |
| For, if you’ll take it on Dalinda’s Word, | |
| ’Tis a hard Chapter to refuse a Lord. | |
| The Poet might pretend this Moral too, | 65 |
| That when a Wit and Fool together woo, 3 | |
| The Damsel (not to break an Ancient Rule) | |
| Shou’d leave the Wit, and take the Wealthy Fool. | |
| This he might mean; but there’s a Truth behind, | |
| And, since it touches none of all our Kind | 70 |
| But Masks and Misses, faith, I’le speak my Mind. | |
| What if he Taught our Sex more cautious Carriage, | |
| And not to be too Coming before Marriage; | |
| For fear of my Misfortune in the Play, | |
| A Kid brought home upon the Wedding day! | 75 |
| I fear there are few Sancho’s in the Pit, | |
| So good as to forgive and to forget, | |
| That will, like him, restore us into Favour, | |
| And take us after on our good Behaviour. | |
| Few, when they find the Mony Bag is rent, | 80 |
| Will take it for good Payment on content. | |
| But in the Telling, there the difference is, | |
| Sometimes they find it more than they cou’d wish. | |
| Therefore be warn’d, you Misses and you Masks, | |
| Look to your hits, nor give the first that asks. | 85 |
| Tears, Sighs, and Oaths, no truth of Passion prove; | |
| True Settlement alone, declares true Love. | |
| For him that Weds a Puss, who kept her first, | |
| I say but little, but I doubt the worst: | |
| The Wife, that was a Cat, may mind her house, | 90 |
| And prove an Honest and a Careful Spouse; | |
| But, faith, I wou’d not trust her with a Mouse. | |
