This play, I dare assure the reader, is none of those; it may want beauties, but the faults are neither gross, nor many. Perfection in any art is not suddenly obtained: the author of this, to his misfortune, left his country at a time when he was to have learned the language. The story he has treated, was an accident which happened at Rome, though he has transferred the scene to England. If it shall please GOD to restore him to me, I may perhaps inform him better of the rules of writing; and if I am not partial, he has already shewn that a genius is not wanting to him. All that I can reasonably fear is, that the perpetual good success of ill plays may make him endeavour to please by writing worse, and by accommodating himself to the wretched capacity and liking of the present audience, from which heaven defend any of my progeny! A poet, indeed, must live by the many; but a good poet will make it his business to please the few. I will not proceed farther on a subject which arraigns so many of the readers.

For what remains, both my son and I are extremely obliged to my dear friend, Mr. Congreve, whose excellent Prologue was one of the greatest ornaments of the play. Neither is my Epilogue the worst which I have written; though it seems at the first sight to expose our young clergy with too much freedom. It was on that consideration that I had once begun it otherwise, and delivered the copy of it to be spoken, in case the first part of it had given offence. This I will give you,

1

partly in my own justification, and partly too
because I think it not unworthy of your sight;
only remembering you, that the last line connects
the sense to the ensuing part of it.-Farewell,
reader if you are a father, you will forgive me;
if not, you
will when you are a father.

Time was, when none could preach without degrees,
And seven-years toil at Universities;

But when the canting Saints came once in play,
The Spirit did their business in a day :

A zealous cobler, with the gift of tongue,

If he could pray six hours, might preach as long.
Thus, in the primitive times of

poetry,
The stage to none but men of sense was free ;
But thanks to your judicious taste, my masters,
It lies in common, now, to poetasters.

You set them up, and till you dare condemn,
The satire lies on you, and not on them.
When mountebanks their drugs at market cry,
Is it their fault to sell, or yours to buy?

'Tis true, they write with ease, and well they may;
Fly-blows are gotten every summer's day;

The

poet does but buz, and there's a play. Wit's not his business, &c.

}

DEDICATION

AND ACCOUNT OF

ANNUS MIRABILIS:

FIRST PRINTED IN OCTAVO, IN 1667.

DEDICATION

OF

ANNUS MIRABILIS, S

THE YEAR OF WONDERS,

M DC LXVI.

AN HISTORICAL POEM.

ΤΟ

THE METROPOLIS OF GREAT BRITAIN,

THE MOST RENOWNED AND LATE FLOURISHING

CITY OF LONDON,

IN ITS REPRESENTATIVES, THE LORD MAYOR AND COURT OF ALDERMEN, THE SHERIFFS AND COMMON COUNCIL OF IT.

As perhaps I am the first who ever pre

sented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation, so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he who was to give the first example of such a Dedication should begin it with that city which has set a pattern to all others of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy.Other cities have been praised for the same virtues; but I am much deceived, if any have so dearly

5 The title of this poem was not new. A prose tract thus entitled was published in 1662.