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PROLOGUE.
Spoken by MR. HART at the acting of the Silent Woman,
WHAT 1 Greece, when learning flourish’d, onely knew, | |
| (Athenian Judges,) you this day renew. | |
| Here too are Annual Rites to Pallas done, | |
| And here Poetique prizes lost or won. | |
| Methinks I see you crown’d with Olives sit, | 5 |
| And strike a sacred Horrour from the Pit. | |
| A Day of Doom is this of your Decree, | |
| Where even the Best are but by Mercy free: | |
| A Day which none but Johnson durst have wish’d to see. | |
| Here they who long have known the usefull Stage | 10 |
| Come to be taught themselves to teach the Age. | |
| As your Commissioners our Poets go, | |
| To cultivate the Virtue which you sow; | |
| In your Lycaeum first themselves refin’d, | |
| And delegated thence to Humane kind. | 15 |
| But as Embassadours, when long from home, | |
| For new Instructions to their Princes come; | |
| So Poets who your Precepts have forgot, | |
| Return, and beg they may be better taught: | |
| Follies and Faults else-where by them are shown. | 20 |
| But by your Manners they correct their own. | |
| Th’ illiterate Writer, Emperique like, applies | |
| To Minds diseas’d, unsafe, chance Remedies: | |
| The Learn’d in Schools, where Knowledge first began, | |
| Studies with Care th’ Anatomy of Man; | 25 |
| Sees Vertue, Vice, and Passions in their Cause, | |
| And Fame from Science, not from Fortune, draws. | |
| So Poetry, which is in Oxford made | |
| An Art, in London onely is a Trade. | |
| There haughty Dunces, whose unlearned Pen | 30 |
| Could ne’er spell Grammar, would be reading Men. | |
| Such build their Poems the Lucretian way; | |
| So many Huddled Atoms make a Play, | |
| And if they hit in Order by some Chance, | |
| They call that Nature which is Ignorance. | 35 |
| To such a Fame let mere Town-Wits aspire, | |
| And their gay Nonsense their own Citts admire. | |
| Our Poet, could he find Forgiveness here, | |
| Would wish it rather than a Plaudit there. | |
| He owns no Crown from those Prætorian Bands, | 40 |
| But knows that Right is in this Senates Hands. | |
| Not impudent enough to hope your Praise, | |
| Low at the Muses Feet, his Wreath he lays, | |
| And, where he took it up, resigns his Bays. | |
| Kings make their Poets whom themselves think fit. | 45 |
| But ’tis your Suffrage makes Authentique Wit. | |
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EPILOGUE
Spoken by MR. HART.
No poor Dutch Peasant, wing’d with all his Fear, | |
| Flies with more haste, when the French Arms draw near, | |
| Than we with our Poetique Train come down. | |
| For Refuge hither from th’ infected Town; | 50 |
| Heaven for our Sins this Summer has thought fit | |
| To visit us with all the Plagues of Wit. | |
| A French Troop first swept all things in its way; | |
| But those hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay; | |
| Yet, to our Cost, in that short time, we find | 55 |
| They left their Itch of Novelty behind. | |
| Th’ Italian Merry-Andrews took their place, | |
| And quite debauch’d the Stage with lewd Grimace: | |
| Instead of Wit and Humours, your Delight | |
| Was there to see two Hobby-horses fight, | 60 |
| Stout Scaramoucha with Rush Lance rode in, | |
| And ran a Tilt at Centaure Arlequin. | |
| For Love you heard how amorous Asses bray’d, | |
| And Cats in Gutters gave their Serenade. | |
| Nature was out of Countenance, and each Day | 65 |
| Some new-born Monster shewn you for a Play. | |
| But when all fail’d, to strike the Stage quite dumb, | |
| Those wicked Engines, call’d Machines, are come. | |
| Thunder and Lightning now for Wit are play’d. | |
| And shortly Scenes in Lapland will be lay’d: | 70 |
| Art Magique is for Poetry profest, | |
| And Cats and Dogs, and each obscener Beast | |
| To which Ægyptian Dotards once did bow, | |
| Upon our English Stage are worshipp’d now. | |
| Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to Renown | 75 |
| Macbeth, the Simon Magus 2 of the town. | |
| Fletcher’s despis’d, your Johnson out of Fashion, | |
| And Wit the onely Drug in all the Nation. | |
| In this low Ebb our Wares to you are shown, | |
| By you those Staple Authours Worth is known; | 80 |
| For Wit’s a Manufacture of your own. | |
| When you, who only can, their scenes have prais’d, | |
| We’ll boldly back, and say their Price is rais’d. | |
