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Home  »  The Poems of John Dryden  »  The Prologue at Oxford, 1680

John Dryden (1631–1700). The Poems of John Dryden. 1913.

Prologues and Epilogues

The Prologue at Oxford, 1680

Thespis, the first Professor of our Art,

At Country Wakes, Sung Ballads in a Cart.

To prove this true, if Latin be no Trespass,

Dicitur et Plaustris vexisse Poemata Thespis.

But Eschylus, says Horace in some Page,

Was the first Mountebank e’er trod the Stage;

Yet Athens never knew your learned Sport

Of tossing Poets in a Tennis-Court.

But ’tis the Talent of our English Nation

Still to be plotting some new Reformation;

And few years hence, if anarchy go on,

Jack Presbyter will here erect his Throne,

Knock out a Tub with Preaching once a Day.

And every Prayer be longer than a Play.

Then all you Heathen Wits shall go to pot

For disbelieving of a Popish plot:

Nor should we want the Sentence to depart

Ev’n in our first Original, a Cart.

Occham, Dun Scotus, must though learn’d go down,

As chief Supporters of the Triple Crown.

And Aristotle for destruction ripe:

Some say he call’d the Soul an Organ-pipe,

Which, by some little help of Derivation,

Shall thence be call’d a Pipe of Inspiration.

Your wiser Judgments further penetrate

Who late found out one Tare amongst the Wheat,

This is our Comfort: none e’er cried us down

But who disturb’d both Bishop and a Crown.