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PROLOGUE. HOW 1 wretched is the Fate of those who write! | |
| Brought muzl’d to the Stage, for fear they bite; | |
| Where, like Tom Dove, they stand the Common Foe, | |
| Lugg’d by the Critique, Baited by the Beau. | |
| Yet, worse, their Brother Poets damn the Play, | 5 |
| And Roar the loudest, tho’ they never pay. | |
| The Fops are proud of Scandal, for they cry, | |
| At every lewd, low Character,—That’s I. | |
| He who writes Letters to himself wou’d Swear, | |
| The World forgot him if he was not there. | 10 |
| What shou’d a Poet do? ’Tis hard for One | |
| To pleasure all the Fools that wou’d be shown: | |
| And yet not Two in Ten will pass the Town. | |
| Most Coxcombs are not of the Laughing kind; | |
| More goes to make a Fop, than Fops can find. | 15 |
| Quack Maurus, tho’ he never took Degrees | |
| In either of our Universities, | |
| Yet to be shown by some kind Wit he looks, | |
| Because he plai’d the Fool, and writ Three Books. | |
| But if he wou’d be worth a Poet’s Pen, | 20 |
| He must be more a Fool, and write again: | |
| For all the former Fustian stuff he wrote | |
| Was Dead-born Doggrel, or is quite forgot; | |
| His Man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew Robe, | |
| Is just the Proverb, and As poor as Job. | 25 |
| One would have thought he could no longer Jog; | |
| But Arthur was a level, Job’s a Bog. | |
| There, tho’ he crept, yet still he kept in sight; | |
| But here, he founders in, and sinks down-right. | |
| Had he prepar’d us, and been dull by Rule, | 30 |
| Tobit had first been turned to Ridicule; | |
| But our bold Britton, without Fear or Awe, | |
| O’er-leaps at once the whole Apocrypha; | |
| Invades the Psalms with Rhymes, and leaves no room | |
| For any Vandal Hopkins yet to come. | 35 |
| But when, if, after all, this Godly Geer | |
| Is not so Senceless as it would appear? | |
| Our Mountebank has laid a deeper Train; | |
| His Cant, like Merry Andrew’s Noble Vein, | |
| Cat-call’s the Sects to draw ’em in again. | 40 |
| At leisure Hours in Epique Song he deals, | |
| Writes to the rumbling of his Coaches Wheels; | |
| Prescribes in hast, and seldom kills by rule, | |
| But rides Triumphant between Stool and Stool. | |
| Well, let him go; ’tis yet too early day | 45 |
| To get himself a Place in Farce or Play; | |
| We know not by what Name we should Arraign him, | |
| For no one Category can contain him; | |
| A Pedant, canting Preacher, and a Quack, | |
| Are load enough to break one Asses Back: | 50 |
| At last, grown wanton, he presum’d to write, | |
| Traduc’d Two Kings, their kindness to requite; | |
| One made the Doctor, and one dubb’d the Knight. | |
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EPILOGUE Perhaps the Parson stretch’d a point too far, | |
| When with our Theatres he wag’d a War. | 55 |
| He tells you, that this very Moral Age | |
| Receiv’d the first Infection from the Stage; | |
| But sure, a banisht Court, with Lewdness fraught, | |
| The Seeds of open Vice returning brought. | |
| Thus lodg’d, (as Vice by great Example thrives,) | 60 |
| It first debauch’d the Daughters and the Wives. | |
| London, a fruitful Soil, yet never bore | |
| So plentiful a Crop of Horns before. | |
| The Poets, who must live by Courts or starve, | |
| Were proud, so good a Government to serve; | 65 |
| And, mixing with Buffoons and Pimps profain, | |
| Tainted the Stage for some small Snip of Gain; | |
| For they, like Harlots, under Bawds profess ’t, | |
| Took all the ungodly pains, and got the least. | |
| Thus did the thriving Malady prevail; | 70 |
| The Court it’s Head, the Poets but the Tail. | |
| The Sin was of our Native Growth, ’tis true; | |
| The Scandall of the Sin was wholly new. | |
| Misses there were, but modestly conceal’d; | |
| White-hall the naked Venus first reveal’d, | 75 |
| Who standing as at Cyprus in her Shrine, | |
| The Strumpet was ador’d with Rites Divine. | |
| E’re this, if Saints had any Secret Motion, | |
| ’Twas Chamber Practice all, and Close Devotion. | |
| I pass the Peccadillo’s of their time; | 80 |
| Nothing but open Lewdness was a Crime. | |
| A Monarch’s Blood was venial to the Nation, | |
| Compar’d with one foul Act of Fornication. | |
| Now, they wou’d Silence us, and shut the Door | |
| That let in all the barefac’d Vice before. | 85 |
| As for reforming us, which some pretend, | |
| That Work in England is without an end; | |
| Well we may change, but we shall never mend. | |
| Yet, if you can but bear the present Stage, | |
| We hope much better of the coming Age. | 90 |
| What wou’d you say, if we should first begin | |
| To Stop the Trade of Love behind the Scene: | |
| Where Actresses make bold with married Men? | |
| For while abroad so prodigal the Dolt is, | |
| Poor Spouse at Home as ragged as a Colt is. | 95 |
| In short, we’ll grow as Moral as we can, | |
| Save, here and there, a Woman or a Man; | |
| But neither you, nor we, with all our pains, | |
| Can make clean work; there will be some Remains, | |
| While you have still your Oats, and we our Hains. | 100 |
