| |
PROLOGUE. WHAT 1 Flocks of Critiques hover here to-day, | |
| As Vultures wait on Armies for their Prey, | |
| All gaping for the Carcase of a Play! | |
| With croaking Notes they bode some dire event, | |
| And follow dying Poets by the scent. | 5 |
| Ours gives himself for gone; y’ have watch’d your Time; | |
| He fights this day unarm’d, without his Rhyme, | |
| And brings a Tale which often has been told, | |
| As sad as Dido’s, and almost as old. | |
| His Heroe, whom you Wits his Bully call, | 10 |
| Bates of his Mettle, and scarce rants at all; | |
| He’s somewhat lewd, but a well-meaning mind, | |
| Weeps much, fights little, but is wondrous kind; | |
| In short, a Pattern and Companion fit | |
| For all the keeping Tonyes of the Pit. | 15 |
| I cou’d name more: A Wife, and Mistress too, | |
| Both (to be plain) too good for most of you; | |
| The Wife well-natur’d, and the Mistress true. | |
| Now, Poets, if your fame has been his Care, | |
| Allow him all the Candour you can spare. | 20 |
| A brave Man scorns to quarrel once a day, | |
| Like Hectors in at ev’ry petty fray. | |
| Let those find fault whose Wit’s so very small, | |
| They’ve need to show that they can think at all. | |
| Errors, like Straws, upon the surface flow; | 25 |
| He who would search for Pearls must dive below. | |
| Fops may have leave to level all they can, | |
| As Pigmies wou’d be glad to lop a Man. | |
| Half-wits are Fleas, so little and so light, | |
| We scarce cou’d know they live, but that they bite. | 30 |
| But, as the rich, when tir’d with daily Feasts, | |
| For Change become their next poor Tenants Ghests; | |
| Drink hearty Draughts of Ale from plain brown Bowls, | |
| And snatch the homely Rasher from the Coals: | |
| So you, retiring from much better Cheer, | 35 |
| For once may venture to do penance here. | |
| And since that plenteous Autumn now is past, | |
| Whose Grapes and Peaches have indulg’d your Taste, | |
| Take in good Part from our poor Poets boord | |
| Such rivell’d Fruits as Winter can afford. | 40 |
| |
EPILOGUE Poets, like Disputants, when Reasons fail, | |
| Have one sure Refuge left, and that’s to rail. | |
| Fop, Coxcomb, Fool, are thunder’d through the Pit, | |
| And this is all their Equipage of Wit. | |
| We wonder how the Devil this diff’rence grows, | 45 |
| Betwixt our Fools in Verse, and yours in Prose: | |
| For, ’Faith, the Quarrel rightly understood, | |
| ’Tis Civil War with their own Flesh and Blood. | |
| The thread bare Author hates the gawdy Coat, | |
| And swears at the Guilt Coach, but swears afoot: | 50 |
| For ’tis observ’d of ev’ry Scribling Man, | |
| He grows a Fop as fast as e’er he can; | |
| Prunes up, and asks his Oracle the Glass, | |
| If Pink or Purple best become his Face. | |
| For our poor Wretch, he neither rails nor prays, | 55 |
| Nor likes your Wit just as you like his Plays; | |
| He has not yet so much of Mr. Bays. | |
| He does his best; and if he cannot please, | |
| Wou’d quietly sue out his Writ of Ease. | |
| Yet, if he might his own grand Jury call, | 60 |
| By the Fair Sex he begs to stand or fall. | |
| Let Cæsar’s Pow’r the Mens Ambition move, | |
| But grace you him, who lost the World for Love! | |
| Yet if some antiquated Lady say, | |
| The last Age is not copy’d in his Play; | 65 |
| Heav’n help the man who for that face must drudge, | |
| Which only has the wrinkles of a Judge. | |
| Let not the Young and Beauteous join with those; | |
| For shou’d you raise such numerous Hosts of Foes, | |
| Young Wits and Sparks he to his aid must call; | 70 |
| ’Tis more than one Man’s work to please you all. | |
