After a year, poor spouse is left i' th' lurch,
And you, like Haynes, return to mother-church.
Or, if the name of Church comes cross your mind,
Chapels of ease behind our scenes you find.
The playhouse is a kind of market place;
One chaffers for a voice, another for a face:
Nay, some of you, I dare not say how many,
Would buy of me a pen'worth for your penny.
E'en this poor face, which with my fan I hide,
Would make a shift my portion to provide,
With some small perquisites I have beside.
Though for your love, perhaps, I should not care,
I could not hate a man that bids me fair.
What might ensue, 'tis hard for me to tell;
But I was drench'd to-day for loving well,
And fear the poison that would make me swell.
To say, this comedy pleased long ago,
Is not enough to make it pass you now.
Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit;
When few men censur'd, and when fewer writ,
And Jonson, of those few the best, chose this, 5
As the best model of his masterpiece.
Subtle was got by our Albumazar,
That Alchymist by his Astrologer;
Here he was fashion'd, and we may suppose
He lik'd the fashion well, who wore the clothes. 10
But Ben made nobly his what he did mould;
What was another's lead becomes his gold:
Like an unrighteous conqueror he reigns,
Yet rules that well, which he unjustly gains.
But this our age such authors does afford,
As make whole plays, and yet scarce write one
word:
Who, in this anarchy of wit, rob all,
And what's their plunder, their possession call:
Who, like bold padders, scorn by night to prey,
But rob by sunshine, in the face of day:
Nay scarce the common ceremony use
Of, Stand, Sir, and deliver up your Muse;
But knock the poet down, and, with a grace,
Mount Pegasus before the author's face.
Faith, if you have such country Toms abroad, 25
"Tis time for all true men to leave that road.
Yet it were modest, could it but be said,
They strip the living, but these rob the dead;
Dare with the mummies of the Muses play,
And make love to them the Egyptian way;
Or, as a rhyming author would have said,
Join the dead living to the living dead.
Such men in Poetry may claim some part:
They have the license, though they want the art; And might, where theft was prais'd, for Laureats
Poets, not of the head, but of the hand.
They make the benefits of others' studying.
Much like the meals of politic Jack-Pudding,'
Whose dish to challenge no man has the courage;
'Tis all his own, when once he has spit i' the por-
But, gentlemen, you're all concern'd in this;
You are in fault for what they do amiss:
For they their thefts still undiscover'd think,
And durst not steal, unless you please to wink.
Perhaps, you may award by your decree,
They should refund; but that can never be.
For should you letters of reprisal seal,
These men write that which no man else would steal.
You saw our wife was chaste, yet thoroughly tried,
And, without doubt, you're hugely edified;
For, like our hero, whom we show'd to-day,
You think no woman true, but in a play.
Love once did make a pretty kind of show:
Esteem and kindness in one breast would grow:
But 'twas Heaven knows how many years ago.
Now some small chat, and guinea expectation,
Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation :
In comedy your little selves you meet;
'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges Street.
Smile on our auther then, if he has shown
A jolly nut-brown bastard of your own.
Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight,
Who act those follies Poets toil to write !
The sweating Muse does almost leave the chase: She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vices pace.
Pinch you but in one vice, away you fly
To some new frisk of contrariety.
You roll like snowballs, gathering as you run, 20
And get seven devils, when dispossess'd of one.
Your Venus once was a Platonic queen;
Nothing of love beside the face was seen;
But every inch of her you now uncase.
And clap a vizard-mask upon the face.
For sins like these, the zealous of the land,
With little hair, and little or no band,
Declare how circulating pestilences
Watch, every twenty years, to snap offences.
Saturn, e'en now, takes doctoral degrees;
He'll do your work this summer without fees.
Let all the boxes, Phoebus, find thy grace,
And, ah, preserve 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 sav'd, thou damn'st a play.
EPILOGUE TO THE HUSBAND HIS OWN CUCKOLD. *
LIKE some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit, So trembles a young Poet at a full pit.
Unus'd to crowds, the Parson quakes for fear,
And wonders how the devil he durst come there;
Wanting three talents needful for the place,
Some beard, some learning, and some little grace:
Nor is the puny Poet void of care;
For authors, such as our new authors are,
Have not much learning, nor much wit to spare: And as for grace, to tell the truth, there's scarce
But has as little as the very Parson:
Both say, they preach and write for your instruc
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.
*This comedy was written by John Dryden, jun., our author's second son. It was acted at the theatre in Lincoln'sinn-fields, in 1696. D.
V. 15. The poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day] Dryden did not receive for his plays from the bookseller above 251. The third night brought about 70%. The Dedication five or ten guineas perhaps. Tonson paid Sir Richard Steele for Addison's Drummer, 50%. 1715. And Dr. Young received 50%. for his Revenge, 1721. Southerne, for his Spartan Dame, in 1722,
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