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PROLOGUE.
Spoken by MR. HART.
POETS, 1 your Subjects, have their Parts assign’d, | |
| T’ unbend and to divert their Sov’reign’s Mind: | |
| When, tyr’d with following Nature, you think fit | |
| To seek repose in the cool shades of Wit, | |
| And from the sweet Retreat, with Joy survey | 5 |
| What rests, and what is conquer’d, of the way. | |
| Here, free your selves from Envy, Care, and Strife, | |
| You view the various Turns of humane Life; | |
| Safe in our Scene, through dangerous Courts you go, | |
| And undebauch’d the Vice of Cities know. | 10 |
| Your Theories are here to Practice brought, | |
| As in Mechanick Operations wrought; | |
| And Man, the little World, before you set, | |
| As once the Sphere of Chrystal Shew’d the Great. | |
| Blest sure are you above all Mortal Kind, | 15 |
| If to your Fortunes you can suit your Mind; | |
| Content to see, and shun, those ills we show, | |
| 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: | 20 |
| That Shakespear’s, Fletcher’s, and great Johnson’s Claim | |
| May be renew’d from those who gave them Fame. | |
| None of our living Poets dare appear; | |
| For Muses so severe are worshipt here | |
| That, conscious of their Faults, they shun the Eye, | 25 |
| And, as Prophane, from sacred Places fly, | |
| Rather than see th’ offended God, and dye. | |
| We bring no Imperfections, but our own; | |
| Such Faults as made are by the Makers shown. | |
| And you have been so kind that we may boast, | 30 |
| The greatest Judges still can pardon most. | |
| Poets must stoop, when they would please our Pit, | |
| Debas’d even to the Level of their Wit; | |
| Disdaining that which yet they know will take, | |
| Hating themselves what their Applause must make. | 35 |
| But when to Praise from you they would aspire, | |
| Though they like Eagles mount, your Jove is higher. | |
| So far your Knowledge all their Pow’r transcends, | |
| As what should be beyond what Is, extends. | |
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EPILOGUE
Spoken by MRS. MARSHALL.
Oft has our Poet wisht, this happy Seat | 40 |
| Might prove his fading Muses last Retreat: | |
| I wonder’d at his Wish, but now I find | |
| He sought for 2 quiet, and content of mind; | |
| Which noisefull Towns and Courts can never know, | |
| And onely in the shades, like Laurels, grow. | 45 |
| Youth, e’er it sees the World, here studies Rest, | |
| And Age, returning thence, concludes it best. | |
| What wonder if we court that happiness, | |
| Yearly to share, which hourly you possess; | |
| Teaching ev’n you, while the vext World we show, | 50 |
| Your Peace to value more, and better know | |
| ’Tis all we can return for favours past, | |
| Whose holy Memory shall ever last, | |
| For Patronage from him whose care presides | |
| O’er every noble Art, and every Science guides: | 55 |
| Bathurst, a name the learn’d with reverence know, | |
| And scarcely more to his own Virgil owe; | |
| Whose Age enjoys but what his Youth deserv’d, | |
| To rule those Muses whom before he serv’d. | |
| His Learning, and untainted Manners too, | 60 |
| We find (Athenians) are deriv’d to you; | |
| Such Antient Hospitality there rests | |
| In yours, as dwelt in the first Grecian Breasts, | |
| Whose kindness was Religion to their Guests. | |
| Such Modesty did to our Sex appear, | 65 |
| As had there been no Laws we need not fear, | |
| Since each of you was our Protector here. | |
| Converse so chast, and so strict Vertue shown, | |
| As might Apollo with the Muses own. | |
| Till our return, we must despair to find | 70 |
| Judges so just, so knowing, and so kind. | |
