[Prologue to Every Man In His Humour, first printed in Folio of 1616, and possibly written for a Jacobean revival.]
Though neede make many Poets, and some such
As art, and nature haue not betterd much;
Yet ours, for want, hath not so lou’d the stage,
As he dare serue th’ill customes of the age:
Or purchase your delight at such a rate,
As, for it, he himselfe must iustly hate.
To make a child, now swadled, to proceede
Man, and then shoote vp, in one beard, and weede,
Past threescore yeeres: or, with three rustie swords,