The plays that take on our corrupted stage, A meal of tragedy would make ye fick, ; Some scenes in fippets would be worth our time; Those would go down; fome love that's poach'd in rhime; If these should fail----- We must lie down, and, after all our cost, Keep holiday, like watermen in frost; While you turn players on the world's great stage, And act yourselves the farce of your own age. EPILOGUE TO A TRAGEDY call'd TAMERLANE. L [By Mr. SAUNDERS.] ADIES, the beardlefs author of this day the fortune of his play. A woman wit has often grac'd the stage; moan, Faith, you'd e'en truft them to themselves alone, The young, who beft can practise, best can write. What tho he be not come to his full power, PROLOGUE TO THE UNIVERSITY of OXFORD, 1681. ΤΗ 'HE fam'd Italian mufe, whose rhimes advance Orlando, and the Paladins of France, Records, that, when our wit and fenfe is flown, "Tis lodg'd within the circle of the moon, In earthen jars, which one, who thither foar'd, Set to his nose, snuff'd up, and was reftor'd. Whate'er the story be, the moral's true; The wit we loft in town, we find in you. Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence, And fill their windy heads with fober fenfe, When London votes with Southwark's disagree, May come, and find their last provision here : PROLOGUE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, UPON HIS First Appearance at the DUKE'S THEATRE, after his Return from SCOTLAND, 1682. N thofe cold regions which no fummers chear, Where brooding darkness covers half the year, To hollow caves the fhiv'ring natives go; Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of fnow: But when the tedious twilight wears away, And stars grow paler at th' approach of day, The longing crowds to frozen mountains run; Happy who first can see the glimmering fun: The furly favage offspring disappear, And curfe the bright fucceffor of the year. Yet, tho rough bears in covert feek defence, White foxes stay, with feeming innocence: That crafty kind with day-light can dispense. Still we are throng'd fo full with Reynard's race, That loyal subjects scarce can find a place : Thus modeft truth is caft behind the croud: Truth fpeaks too low; hypocrify too loud. } |