Perhaps, you may award by your decree,
They fhould refund; but that can never be.
For fhould you letters of reprifal feal,

45

Thefe men write that which no man else would fteal.

AN EPILOGUE.

YOU faw our wife was chafte, yet throughly

try'd,

And, without doubt, you're hugely edify'd;
For, like our hero, whom we fhew'd to-day,
You think no woman true, but in a play.

Love once did make a pretty kind of show: 5
Efteem and kindnefs in one breaft would

grow:

10

But'twas Heaven knows how many years ago.
Now fome small chat, and guinea expectation,
Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation :
In comedy your little felves you meet ;
'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges-ftreet.
Smile on our author then, if he has fhown
A jolly nut-brown baftard of your own.
Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight,
Who act those follies, Poets toil to write!
The fweating Mufe does almost leave the chace;
She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vices

15

You roll like fnow-balls, gathering as you run,
And get
feven devils, when difpoffefs'd of one. 21
Your Venus once was a Platonic queen;
Nothing of love befide the face was seen;
But every inch of her you now uncase,
And clap a vizard-mask upon the face.
For fins like thefe, the zealous of the land,
With little hair, and little or no band,
Declare how circulating peftilences

Watch, every twenty years, to fnap offences.
Saturn, e'en now, takes doctoral degrees;
He'll do
your work this fummer without fees.
Let all the boxes, Phœbus, find thy grace,
And, ah, preferve the eighteen-penny place!
But for the pit confounders, let 'em go,
And find as little mercy as they show:
The Actors thus, and thus thy Poets pray:
For every critic fav'd, thou damn'ft a play.

25

30

35

EPILOGUE

TO THE

HUSBAND HIS OWN CUCKOLD*.

LIKE fome raw fophifter that mounts the

pulpit,

So trembles a young Poet at a full pit.

Unus'd to crowds, the Parfon quakes for fear, And wonders how the devil he durft come there;

Wanting three talents needful for the place, 5 Some beard, fome learning, and fome little

grace:

Nor is the puny Poet void of care;

For authors, fuch as our new authors are,

Have not much learning, nor much wit to

fpare:

And as for grace, to tell the truth, there's

fcarce one,

But has as little as the

very

Parfon :

10

*This comedy was written by John Dryden, jun. our author's fecond fon. It was acted at the theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields in 1696,

DERRICK.

Both fay, they preach and write for

ftruction:

your in

15

But 'tis for a third day, and for induction.
The difference is, that though you like the play,
The poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day.
But with the Parfon 'tis another cafe,
He, without holinefs, may rife to grace;
The Poet has one difadvantage more,
That if his play be dull, he's damn'd all o'er,
Not only a damn'd blockhead, but damn'd

poor.

20

But dulness well becomes the fable garment;
I warrant that ne'er fpoil'd a Prieft's prefer-

ment:

Wit's not his bufinefs, and as wit now goes, Sirs, 'tis not fo much yours as you fuppofe, For you like nothing now but naufeous beaux.

25

Ver. 15. The poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day.] Dryden did not receive for his plays from the bookfeller above 251. The third night brought about 701. The Dedication five or ten guineas perhaps. Tonfon paid Sir Richard Steele for Addifon's Drummer, 501. 1715. And Dr. Young received 501. for his Revenge, 1721. Southerne, for his Spartan Dame, in 1722, had 1201. and now it is 1001. and 1501. There were plays on Sundays till the third year of Charles the Firft's reign. Otway had but one benefit for a play. Southerne was the first who had two benefits from a new reprefentation. Farquhar had three for Conftant Couple in 1700. Three of Ben Johnfon's plays, Sejanus, Catiline, and the New Inne, and two of Beaumont and Fletcher's, viz. The Faithful Shepherdefs, and the Knight of the Burning Peftle, were damned the firft night. Even the Silent Woman had like to have been condemned. Dr. J. Warton.