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For they their thefts ftill undiscover'd think, And durft not steal, unless you please to wink. Perhaps, you may award by your decree, They should refund; but that can never be. For fhould you letters of reprifal feal,

These men write that which no man else would fteal.

A NE PILOGUE.

You

OU faw our wife was chafte, yet throughly try'd,

And, without doubt, y'are hugely edify'd

;

For, like our hero, whom we fhew'd to-day,
You think no woman true, but in a play.
Love once did make a pretty kind of show:
Efteem and kindnefs in one breaft would
grow:
But 'twas Heav'n knows how many years ago.
Now fome finall chat, and guinea expectation,
Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation:
In Comedy your little felves you meet;
'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges-street.
Smile on our author then, if he has shown

A jolly nut-brown baftard of your own.

Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight, Who act those follies, Poets toil to write !

The sweating Mufe does almost leave the chace; She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vices pace. Pinch but in one vice, away you fly

you

To fome new frisk of contrariety.

You rowl like fnow-balls, gathering as you run,
And get
feven devils, when difpoffefs'd of one.
Your Venus once was a Platonic queen;
Nothing of love befide the face was feen;
But every inch of her you now uncafe,
And clap a vizard-mask upon the face,

For fins like these, the zealous of the land,
With little hair, and little or no band,
Declare how circulating peftilences

Watch, every twenty years, to snap offences.
Saturn, e'en now, takes doctoral degrees;
He'll do your work this fummer without fees.
Let all the boxes, Phoebus, find thy grace,
And, ah, preferve the eighteen-penny place!
But for the pit confounders, let 'em go,
And find as little mercy as they show :
The Actors thus, and thus thy Poets pray;
For ev'ry critic fav'd, thou damn'st a play.

EPILOLOGUE

TO THE

HUSBAND HIS OWN CUCKOLD.

L

IKE some raw fophifter that mounts the pulpit,

So trembles a young Poet at a full pit. Unus'd to crowds, the Parfon quakes for fear, And wonders how the devil he durft come there; Wanting three talents needful for the place, Some beard, fome learning, and fome little grace: Nor is the puny Poet void of care;

For authors, fuch 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 Parfon :

Both fay, they preach and write for

tion :

your inftruc

But 'tis for a third day, and for induction.
The difference is, that tho you like the play,
The Poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day.

But with the Parfon 'tis another cafe,

He, without holiness, may rise to grace;

The Poet has one difadvantage more,

That if his play be dull, he's damn'd all o’er,
Not only a damn'd blockhead, but damn'd poor,
But dulness well becomes the fable garment;
I warrant that ne'er spoil'd a Prieft's preferment:
Wit's not his bufinefs, and as wit now goes,
Sirs, 'tis not fo much yours as you fuppose,
For you
like nothing now but naufeous beaux.
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 drefs, and monftrous muff.
The truth on't is, the payment of the pit
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 arife,
For tho' the 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

TO THE

PIL

GRI M.

Revived for our Author's Benefit Anno 1700.

HOW

OW wretched is the fate of those who write! Brought muzzled to the stage, for fear they bite.

Where, like Tom Dove, they stand the common

foe;

Lugg'd by the critic, baited by the beau.
Yet worse, their brother Poets damn the play,
And roar the loudeft, 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, would fwear,
The world forgot him, if he was not there.
What should 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.
Moft coxcombs are not of the laughing kind;
More goes to make a fop, than fops can find.

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