But, when you lay tradition wholly by,
And on the private spirit alone rely,
You turn fanatics in your poetry.

If, notwithstanding all that we can say,

You needs will have your penn'orths of the play,
And come resolved to damn, because you pay,
Record it, in memorial of the fact,

The first play buried since the woollen act.

29

XXIII.

EPILOGUE TO "EDIPUS."

WHAT Sophocles could undertake alone,
Our poets found a work for more than one;

And therefore two lay tugging at the piece,

With all their force, to draw the ponderous mass from Greece;
A weight that bent e'en Seneca's strong Muse,
And which Corneille's shoulders did refuse:
So hard it is the Athenian harp to string!
So much two consuls yield to one just king!
Terror and pity this whole poem sway;
The mightiest machines that can mount a play.
How heavy will, those vulgar souls be found,
Whom two such engines cannot move from ground!
When Greece and Rome have smiled upon this birth,
You can but damn for one poor spot of earth:

And when your children find your judgment such,

10

They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch;

Each haughty poet will infer, with ease,

How much his wit must underwrite to please.

As some strong churl would, brandishing, advance
The monumental sword that conquer'd France;
So you, by judging this, your judgment teach,
Thus far you like, that is, thus far you reach.
Since, then, the vote of full two thousand years
Has crown'd this plot, and all the dead are theirs,
Think it a debt you pay, not alms you give,
And, in your own defence, let this play live.
Think them not vain, when Sophocles is shown,
To praise his worth they humbly doubt their own.
Yet as weak states each other's power assure,
Weak poets by conjunction are secure.
Their treat is what your palates relish most,
Charm! song! and show! a murder and a ghost!
We know not what you can desire or hope
To please you more, but burning of a Pope.

19

30

XXIV.

PROLOGUE TO “ TROILUS AND CRESSIDA."

SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON, REPRESENTING
THE GHOST OF SHAKSPEARE.

SEE, my loved Britons, see your Shakspeare rise,
An awful ghost, confess'd, to human eyes!
Unnamed, methinks, distinguish'd I had been
From other shades, by this eternal green,
About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive,
And with a touch their wither'd bays revive.

Untaught, unpractised in a barbarous age,
I found not, but created first the stage.
And, if I drain'd no Greek or Latin store,
'Twas that my own abundance gave me more.
On foreign trade I needed not rely,

Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply.
In this my rough-drawn play you shall behold
Some master strokes, so manly and so bold,
That he who meant to alter, found 'em such,
He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch.
Now, where are the successors to my name?
What bring they to fill out a poet's fame?
Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age;
Scarce living to be christen'd on the stage!
For humour, farce-for love they rhyme dispense,
That tolls the knell for their departed sense.
Dulness might thrive in any trade, but this
"Twould recommend to some fat benefice:
Dulness, that in a playhouse meets disgrace,
Might meet with reverence in its proper place.
The fulsome clench, that nauseates the town,
Would from a judge or alderman go down;
Such virtue is there in a robe and gown!
And that insipid stuff, which here you hate,
Might somewhere else be call'd a grave debate:
Dulness is decent in the church and state.
But I forget that still 'tis understood,
Bad plays are best decried by showing good.
Sit silent, then, that my pleased soul may see
A judging audience once, and worthy me;
My faithful scene from true records shall tell,
How Trojan valour did the Greek excel;
Your great forefathers shall their fame regain,
And Homer's angry ghost repine in vain.

THE unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men ;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
What praise soe'er the poetry deserve,
Yet every fool can bid the poet starve.
That fumbling lecher to revenge is bent,
Because he thinks himself or whore is meant :
Name but a cuckold, all the city swarms;
From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms:
Were there no fear of Antichrist, or France,
In the bless'd time poor poets live by chance.
Either you come not here, or, as you grace
Some old acquaintance, drop into the place,
Careless and qualmish, with a yawning face:
You sleep o'er wit, and, by my troth, you may ;
Most of your talents lie another way.
You love to hear of some prodigious tale,
The bell that toll'd alone, or Irish whale.
News is your food, and you enough provide,
Both for yourselves, and all the world beside;
One theatre there is of vast resort,

Which whilome of Requests was called the Court ;
But now the great Exchange of News 'tis hight,
And full of hum and buzz from noon till night.
Up stairs and down you run, as for a race,
And each man wears three nations in his face.

''Cæsar Borgia:' a play produced about the time of the Popish Plot.

So big you look, though claret you retrench,
That, arm'd with bottled ale, you huff the French.
But all your entertainment still is fed
By villains in your own dull island bred.
Would you return to us, we dare engage
To show you better rogues upon the stage.
You know no poison but plain ratsbane here ;
Death's more refined, and better bred elsewhere.
They have a civil way in Italy,

By smelling a perfume to make you die :

A trick would make you lay your snuff-box by.
Murder's a trade, so known and practised there,
That 'tis infallible as is the Chair.

But mark their feast, you shall behold such pranks;
The Pope says grace, but 'tis the Devil gives thanks.

28

40

XXVI.

PROLOGUE TO "SOPHONISBA,"

ACTED AT OXFORD, 1680.

WRITTEN BY NATHAN LEE.

THESPIS,1 the first professor of our art,
At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,
"Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis."
But Eschylus, says Horace in some page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the stage:
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport
Of tossing poets in a tennis-court.