THIS 1 jeast was first of t’ other houses making, | |
| And, five times try’d, has never fail’d of taking; | |
| For ’twere a shame a Poet shoud be kill’d | |
| Under the shelter of so broad a shield. | |
| This is that hat, whose very sight did win yee | 5 |
| To laugh and clap as though the Devil were in yee. | |
| As then for Nokes, so now I hope you’l be | |
| So dull, to laugh once more for love of me. | |
| I’ll write a Play, sayes one, for I have got | |
| A broad-brim’d hat and wastbelt towards a Plot. | 10 |
| Sayes t’ other, I have one more large than that. | |
| Thus they out-write each other—with a hat. | |
| The brims still grew with every Play they writ; | |
| And grew so large, they cover’d all the wit. | |
| Hat was the Play; ’twas language, wit, and Tale: | 15 |
| Like them that find Meat, drink, and cloth in Ale. | |
| What dulness do these Mungrill-wits confess, | |
| When all their hope is acting of a dress! | |
| Thus, two the best Comedians of the Age | |
| Must be worn out with being Blocks o’ th’ Stage: | 20 |
| Like a young Girl, who better things has known, | |
| Beneath their Poets Impotence they groan. | |
| See now what Charity it was to save! | |
| They thought you lik’d what onely you for-gave; | |
| And brought you more dull sence, dull sence much worse | 25 |
| Than brisk gay Non-sence, and the heavyer Curse. | |
| They bring old Ir’n and glass upon the Stage, | |
| To barter with the Indians of our Age. | |
| Still they write on, and like great Authors show; | |
| But ’tis as Rowlers in wet gardens grow | 30 |
| Heavy with dirt, and gath’ring as they goe. | |
| May none, who have so little understood, | |
| To like such trash, presume to praise what’s good! | |
| And may those drudges of the Stage, whose fate | |
| Is, damn’d dull farce more dully to translate, | 35 |
| Fall under that excise the State thinks fit | |
| To set on all French wares, whose worst is wit. | |
| French Farce, worn out at home, is sent abroad; | |
| And, patch’d up here, is made our English mode. | |
| Henceforth, let Poets, ’ere allow’d to write, | 40 |
| Be search’d, like Duellists before they fight, | |
| For wheel-broad hats, dull Humour, 2 all that chaffe, | |
| Which makes you mourn, and makes the Vulgar laugh: | |
| For these, in Playes, are as unlawful Arms, | |
| As, in a Combat, Coats of Mayle, and Charms. | 45 |
| |
EPILOGUE Success, which can no more than beauty last, | |
| Makes our sad Poet mourn your favours past: | |
| For, since without desert he got a name, | |
| He fears to loose it now with greater shame. | |
| Fame, like a little Mistriss of the Town, | 50 |
| Is gaind with ease; but then she’s lost as soon; | |
| For, as those taudry Misses, soon or late, | |
| Jilt such as keep ’em at the highest rate, | |
| (And oft the Lacquey, or the Brawny Clown, | |
| Gets what is hid in the loose body’d gown;) | 55 |
| So, Fame is false to all that keep her long; | |
| And turns up to the Fop that’s brisk and young. | |
| Some wiser Poet now would leave Fame first; | |
| But elder wits are, like old Lovers, curst: | |
| Who, when the vigor of their Youth is spent, | 60 |
| Still grow more fond as they grow impotent. | |
| This, some years hence, our Poets case may prove; | |
| But yet, he hopes, he’s young enough to love. | |
| When forty comes, if ere he live to see | |
| That wretched, fumbling age of poetry; | 65 |
| ’Twill 3 be high time to bid his Muse adieu: | |
| Well he may please him self, but never you. | |
| Till then, he’l do as well as he began, | |
| And hopes you will not finde him less a man. | |
| Think him not duller for this years delay; | 70 |
| He was prepar’d, the women were away; | |
| And men, without their parts, can hardly play. | |
| If they, through sickness, seldome did appear, | |
| Pity the Virgins of each Theatre! | |
| For, at both houses, ’twas a sickly year! | 75 |
| And pity us, your servants, to whose cost, | |
| In one such sickness, nine whole Months 4 are lost. | |
| Their Stay, he fears, has ruin’d what he writ: | |
| Long waiting both disables love and wit. | |
| They thought they gave him Leisure to do well; | 80 |
| But, when they forc’d him to attend, he fell! | |
| Yet, though he much has faild, he begs to day | |
| You will excuse his unperforming Play: | |
| Weakness sometimes great passion does express; | |
| He had pleas’d better, had he lov’d you less. | 85 |
