MOORS have this way (as story tells) to know
Whether their brats are truly got, or no;
Into the fea, the new-born babe is thrown,
There, as instinct directs, to swim, or drown.
A barbarous device, to try if spouse
Has kept religiously her nuptial vους.
Such are the trials, poets make of plays:
Only they trust to more inconftant feas;
So does our author, this his child commit
To the tempestuous mercy of the pit,
To know if it be truly born of wit.
Criticks avant; for you are fish of prey,
And feed, like sharks, upon an infant play,
Be ev'ry monster of the deep away;
Let's have a fair trial, and a clear fea.
Let Nature work, and do not damn too foor,
For life will struggle long, ere it fink down :
And will at least rife thrice, before it drown.
Let us confider, had it been our fate,
Thus hardly to be prov'd legitimate!
I will not say, we'd all in danger been,
Were each to suffer for his mother's fin :
But by my troth I cannot avoid thinking,
How nearly fome good men might have 'Scap'd finking.
But, Heav'n be prais'd, this custom is confin'd
Alone to th' offspring of the Muses kind:
Our chriftian cuckolds are more bent to pity;
I know not one Moor-husband in the city.
I'th' good man's arms the chopping bastard thrives,
For he thinks all his own that is his wife's.
Whatever fate is for this play design'd,
The poet's fure he shall some comfort find:
For if his Muse has play'd him false, the worst
That can befall him, is, to be divorc'd;
You busbands judge, if that, be to be curs'd.