Volume 10 / Part 3 — A PROLOGUE.
Reading edition
This Prologue was obviously spoken in 1680-1, from its frequent reference to the politics of that period: but upon what particular occasion I have not discovered.
} If yet there be a few that take delight } In that which reasonable men should write, } To them alone we dedicate this night. } The rest may satisfy their curious itch With city-gazettes, or some factious speech,[357] Or whate'er libel, for the public good, Stirs up the shrove-tide crew to fire and blood. Remove your benches, you apostate pit, And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit; Go back to your dear dancing on the rope, Or see what's worse, the devil and the pope.[358] The plays, that take on our corrupted stage, Methinks, resemble the distracted age; Noise, madness, all unreasonable things, That strike at sense, as rebels do at kings. The style of forty-one our poets write, And you are grown to judge like forty-eight.[359] Such censures our mistaking audience make, That 'tis almost grown scandalous to take. They talk of fevers that infect the brains; But nonsense is the new disease that reigns. Weak stomachs, with a long disease opprest, Cannot the cordials of strong wit digest; Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye choose, Decoctions of a barley-water muse. A meal of tragedy would make ye sick, Unless it were a very tender chick. Some scenes in sippets would be worth our time; Those would go down; some love that's poached in rhime: If these should fail—— We must lie down, and, after all our cost, Keep holiday, like watermen in frost; While you turn players on the world's great stage, And act yourselves the farce of your own age.