The Devil's in ye all; Mankind's a Rogue, You love the Bride, but you detest the Clog : After a Year, poor Spouse is left i' th' lurch; And you, like Haynes, return to MotherChurch. 20 Or, if the Name of Church comes cross your mind, Chapels of Ease behind our Scenes you find. The Play-house is a kind of Market-place; One chaffers for a Voice, another for a Face; Nay, some of you, I dare not say how many, Would buy of me a Pen'worth for your Peny. Would make a shift my Portion to provide, With some small Perquisites I have beside. Though for your Love, perhaps, I should not care, 30 I could not hate a Man that bids me fair. What might ensue, 'tis hard for me to tell ; But I was drench'd to day for loving well, And fear the Poyson that would make me swell. PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO LOVE TRIUMPHANT, OR NATURE WILL PREVAIL. No double Entendrès, which you Sparks allow, To make the Ladies look-they know not how; Simply as 'twere, and knowing both together, 30 The Beaux may think this nothing but vain Praise ; They'l find it something, the Testator says: For half their Love is made from scraps of Plays. 40 To his worst Foes, he leaves his Honesty ; That they may thrive upon't as much as he. He leaves his Manners to the Roaring Boys, Who come in Drunk and fill the House with noise. He leaves to the dire Critiques of his Wit His Silence and Contempt of all they Writ. To Shakespear's Critique he bequeaths the Curse, To find his faults; and yet himself make worse; Now, in good Manners, nothing shou'd be sed Against this Play, because the Poet's dead. The Prologue told us of a Moral here: Wou'd I cou'd find it, but the Devil knows where. If in my Part it lyes, I fear he means To warn us of the Sparks behind our For, if you'll take it on Dalinda's Word, This he might mean; but there's a Truth And, since it touches none of all our Kind What if he Taught our Sex more cautious And not to be too Coming before Marriage; Therefore be warn'd, you Misses and you Look to your hits, nor give the first that asks. EPILOGUE TO THE HUSBAND HIS OWN CUCKOLD. LIKE some raw Sophister that mounts the | Nor is the F'uny Poet void of Care; So trembles a young Poet at a full Pit. And wonders how the Devil he durst come For Authors, such as our new Authors are, Have not much Learning, nor much Wit to spare ; And as for Grace, to tell the Truth, there's scarce one, But has as little as the very Parson : But 'tis for a Third Day, and for Induction. The Poet's Gain is ne'er beyond his Day. THE HUSBAND HIS OWN CUCKOLD, 1696. The play is by John Dryden the younger. You laugh not,Gallants,as by proof appears, At what his Beauship says, but what he wears; So 'tis your Eyes are tickled,not your Ears.) The Taylor and the Furrier find the Stuff, The Wit lies in the Dress and monstrous Muff. The Truth on't is, the Payment of the Pit 31 Is like for like, Clipt Money for Clipt Wit. You cannot from our absent Author hope He should equip the Stage with such a Fop Fools Change in England, and new Fools arise; For, tho' th' Immortal Species never dies, Yet ev'ry Year new Maggots make new Flies. But where he lives abroad, he scarce can find One Fool, for Million that he left behind. PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE ON THE OCCASION OF A REPRESENTATION FOR DRYDEN'S BENEFIT, MARCH 25, 1700. PROLOGUE. How 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, 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. Quack Maurus, tho' he never took Degrecs In either of our Universities, AT DRYDEN'S BENEFIT. Text of 1700. 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. 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 downright. Had he prepar'd us, and been dull by Rule, Tobit had first been turned to Ridicule; 31 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. 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. At leisure Hours in Epique Song he deals, 41 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 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; One made the Doctor, and one dubb'd the EPILOGUE. Perhaps the Parson stretch'd a point too far, When with our Theatres he wag'd a War. 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,) It first debauch'd the Daughters and the London, a fruitful Soil, yet never bore 10 or Were proud, so good a Government to serve; 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; The Scandall of the Sin was wholly new. 20 |