| |
| SURE 1 there’s a Fate in Plays; and ’tis in vain | |
| To write, while these malignant Planets Reign. | |
| Some very foolish Influence rules the Pit, | |
| Not always kind to Sence, or just to Wit. | |
| And whilst it lasts, let Buffoonry succeed | 5 |
| To make us laugh; for never was more need. | |
| Farce in it self is of a nasty scent, | |
| But the gain smells not of the Excrement. | |
| The Spanish nymph, a Wit and Beauty too, | |
| With all her Charms bore but a single show: | 10 |
| But let a Monster Muscovite appear, | |
| He draws a crowded Audience round the Year. | |
| May be thou hast not pleas’d the Box and Pit, | |
| Yet those who blame thy Tale, commend thy Wit; | |
| So Terence Plotted, but so Terence writ. | 15 |
| Like his, thy Thoughts are true, thy Language clean; | |
| Ev’n Lewdness is made Moral, in thy Scene. | |
| The Hearers may for want of Nokes repine, | |
| But rest secure, the Readers will be thine. | |
| Nor was thy Labour’d Drama damn’d or hiss’d, | 20 |
| But with a kind Civility 2 dismiss’d; | |
| With such good manners, as the Wife 3 did use, | |
| Who, not accepting, did but just refuse. | |
| There was a glance at parting; such a look | |
| As bids thee not give o’re, for one rebuke. | 25 |
| But if thou wou’dst be seen as well as read; | |
| Copy one living Author and one dead: | |
| The Standard of thy Style, let Etherege be; | |
| For Wit, th’ Immortal Spring of Wycherly. | |
| Learn, after both, to draw some just Design, | 30 |
And the next Age will learn to Copy thine.
JOHN DRYDEN. | |
