Now, luck for us, and a kind hearty pit;
For he, who pleases, never fails of wit:
Honor is yours;

And you, like kings, at city-treats bestow it;
The writer kneels, and is bid rise a poet;
But you are fickle sovereigns, to our sorrow;
You dub to-day, and hang a man to-morrow:
You cry the same sense up, and down again,
Just like brass money once a year in Spain:
Take you i' th' mood, whate'er base metal

come,

You coin as fast as groats at Bromingam:

ΤΟ

To fright the ladies first, and then be parted. A fair attempt has twice or thrice been made,

To hire night-murth'rers, and make death a trade.

When murther 's out, what vice can we advance,

Unless the new-found pois'ning trick of France ?

And, when their art of ratsbane we have got,

Than Rome's religion like St. Peter's days. In short, so swift your judgments turn and

wind,

[The date and occasion of this prologue are unknown. It was not printed until 1693, when it appeared in Examen Poeticum with the heading, Prologue by Mr. Dryden. Christie places it in 1681 on account of its resemblance in style to the Epilogue to Tamerlane the Great, and this guess is as likely to be right as any other.]

GALLANTS, a bashful poet bids me say He's come to lose his maidenhead to-day. Be not too fierce, for he 's but green of age, And ne'er, till now, debauch'd upon the stage.

He wants the suff'ring part of resolution, And comes with blushes to his execution.

E'er you deflow'r his Muse, he hopes the pit

Will make some settlement upon his wit.
Promise him well, before the play begin,
For he would fain be cozen'd into sin.
'Tis not but that he knows you mean to

fail;

But, if you leave him after being frail, He'll have, at least, a fair pretense to

rail;

ΤΟ

He would be loth the beauties to offend; 20 But, if he should, he 's not too old to mend. He's a young plant, in his first year of bearing;

But his friend swears he will be worth the rearing.

His gloss is still upon him; tho' 't is true He's yet unripe, yet take him for the blue. You think an apricot half green is best: There's sweet and sour, and one side good at least.

Mangoes and limes, whose nourishment is little,

Tho' not for food, are yet preserv'd for

pickle.

[This prologue was first printed in Miscellany Poems, 1684. Scott's note upon it is of peculiar interest:

"This prologue must have been spoken at Oxford during the residence of the Duke of York in Scotland, in 1681-82. [More exactly, from October, 1680, to March, 1682.] The humor turns upon a part of the company having attended the duke to Scotland, where, among other luxuries little known to my countrymen, he introduced, during his residence at Holyrood House, the amusements of the theater. I can say little about the actors commemorated in the following verses, excepting that their stage was erected in the tennis court of the palace, which was afterwards converted into some sort of manufactory, and finally burned down many years ago. Besides these deserters, whom Dryden has described very ludicrously, he mentions a sort of strolling company, composed, it would seem, of Irishmen, who had lately acted at Oxford."]

DISCORD and plots, which have undone our age,

With the same ruin have o'erwhelm'd the stage.

But why should I these renegades describe,

When you yourselves have seen a lewder tribe ?

Teg has been here, and, to this learned pit,

With Irish action slander'd English wit: You have beheld such barb'rous Macs appear,

As merited a second massacre:

30

Such as, like Cain, were branded with disgrace,

And had their country stamp'd upon their face.

When strollers durst presume to pick your

purse,

We humbly thought our broken troop not

worse.

How ill soe'er our action may deserve, Oxford's a place where wit can never

sterve.

Nature herself lies open to your view; You judge by her, what draught of her is true,

Where outlines false, and colors seem too faint,

Where bunglers daub, and where true poets paint.

But, by the sacred genius of this place,
By every Muse, by each domestic grace,
Be kind to wit, which but endeavors well,
And, where you judge, presumes not to
excel.

Our poets hither for adoption come,

As nations sued to be made free of Rome: 30
Not in the suffragating tribes to stand,
But in your utmost, last, provincial band.
If his ambition may those hopes pursue,
Who with religion loves your arts and
you,

[This tragedy, by John Banks, was probably acted in the spring or summer of 1681, since it was published late in that year, being entered in the Term Catalogue for Michaelmas Term (November). According to Langbaine, this edition was dated 1682. As it has been inaccessible, the text of the prologue is taken from the second edition of the play, 1685. The epilogue is also printed, with some variations of text, and with the heading, An Epilogue for the King's House, in Miscellany Poems, 1684, from which the present text is taken.

The date of the royal visit referred to in the prologue is unknown. It seems to have been at the fifth performance of the play, since in the printed copy Dryden's prologue is preceded by a Prologue spoken by Major Mohun, the first four days. Perhaps it was upon the return of the king to London after the Oxford Parliament.]

20

Must still our weather and our wills
agree?
Without our blood our liberties we have:
Who that is free would fight to be a slave ?
Or, what can wars to aftertimes assure,
Of which our present age is not secure?
All that our monarch would for us ordain,
Is but t'injoy the blessings of his reign.
Our land's an Eden, and the main's our
fence,

While we preserve our state of innocence: That lost, then beasts their brutal force employ,

And first their lord, and then themselves

For never men liv'd more on Providence.
Not lott'ry cavaliers are half so poor,
Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore;
Nor courts, nor courtiers living on the
rents

Of the three last ungiving parliaments: So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine,

He might have spar'd his dream of seven lean kine,

10

And chang'd his vision for the Muses

nine.