They, who are by your favours wealthy made, With mighty fums may carry on the trade: We, broken bankers, half destroy'd by fire, With our small stock to humble roofs retire: 15

Pity our lofs, while you their pomp

admire. For fame and honour we no longer strive, We yield in both, and only beg to live: Unable to fupport their vaft expence, Who build and treat with fuch magnificence; 20 That, like the ambitious monarchs of the age, They give the law to our provincial stage. Great neighbours enviously promote excefs, While they impose their splendor on the lefs. But only fools, and they of vast estate, The extremity of modes will imitate, The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat.. Yet if fome pride with want may be allow'd, We in our plainnefs may be justly proud : Our royal mafter will'd it fhould be so; Whate'er he's pleas'd to own, can need no fhow:

25

Ver. 30. Our royal mafter] It is to be lamented, that after the fire of London, a magnificent theatre had not been built at the expence of the public, or of the King. Few princes have fo much encouraged theatrical spectacles as Leo the Tenth. He ordered a magnificent ftage to be erected, and actors to be brought from Florence to Rome, to act the Mandragola of Machiavel, though a moft licentious drama, and abounding in the moft ferere ridicule on the popifh ceremonies, particularly in A& V. Scene I. and A&t 111. Scene V.; yet this fame pope, with that inconfiftency that is to be found in almost all human

That facred name gives ornament and grace, And, like his stamp, makes baseft metals pafs. 'Twere folly now a ftately pile to raife, To build a playhoufe while you throw down' plays,

35

While fcenes, machines, and empty operas

reign,

And for the pencil you the pen disdain: While troops of famifh'd Frenchmen hither drive,

And laugh at thofe upon whofe alms they live:

Old English authors vanish, and give place 40 To these new conquerors of the Norman race. More tamely than your fathers you fubmit; You're now grown vaffals to them in your wit. Mark, when they play, how our fine fops ad

vance,

The mighty merits of their men of France, 45 Keep time, cry Bon, and humour the cadence.

Well, please yourselves; but fure 'tis underftood,

That French machines have ne'er done England good.

characters, addreffed a folemn brief to Sannazarius, thanking him for his famous poem, De Partu Virginis, and alfo Providence, for raifing up fuch a champion, at a time when the Holy Church was fo violently attacked, and in fuch danger. Dr. J. WARTON.

I would not prophefy our house's fate:

But while vain fhows and scenes you over-rate, "Tis to be fear'd

That as a fire the former houfe o'erthrew,

Machines and tempefts will deftroy the new.

51

PROLOGUE

TO THE

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1674.

SPOKEN BY MR. HART *.

POETS, your fubjects, have their parts af

fign'd

To unbend, and to divert their fovereign's mind:

When tir'd with following nature, you think fit To feek repofe in the cool fhades of wit,

And, from the fweet retreat, with joy furvey 5 What refts, and what is conquer'd, of the way. Here, free yourselves from envy, care, and ftrife,

You view the various turns of human life:

• Several gentlemen, who had adhered to their principles of loyalty during the ufurpation of Cromwell, and the exile of the Royal Family, being left unprovided for at the Restoration, they applied themfelves to different occupations for a livelihood: among them was Mr. Hart, the speaker of this prologue, who had ferved his Majefty as a captain in the civil war, and was now an actor in a capital caft, and in great eftimation. DERRICK.

Safe in our scene, through dangerous courts

'you go,

10

And, undebauch'd, the vice of cities know.
Your theories are here to practice brought,
As in mechanic operations wrought;
And man, the little world, before you fet,
As once the sphere of chryftal fhew'd the
great.

Bleft fure are you above all mortal kind,

If to your fortunes you can fuit

15

your mind: Content to fee, and fhun, thofe ills we fhow, And crimes on theatres alone to know. With joy we bring what our dead authors writ, And beg from you the value of their wit: That Shakspeare's, Fletcher's, and great Jonfon's claim,

20

May be renew'd from those who gave them fame.

None of our living poets dare appear;
For mufes fo fevere are worshipp'd here,
That, conscious of their faults, they fhun the'

eye,

the

25

And, as prophane, from facred places fly,
Rather than fee the offended God, and die.
We bring no imperfections, but our own;
Such faults as made are by the makers shown:
And you have been fo kind, that we may boast,
The greatest judges ftill can pardon most.

31