LONDON:

Printed for J. W. And Sold by J. Roberts in
Warwick-Lane, MDCCXXXII.

[Price One Shilling.]

PROLOGUE.

Spoken by Mr. William Mills.

I Wish, with all my Heart, the Stage and Town
Would both agree to cry all Prologues down;
That we, no more oblig'd to say or sing,
Might drop this useless necessary Thing:
No more with aukward Strut, before the Curtain,
Chaunt out some Rhimes—there's neither good nor hurt in.
What is this Stuff the Poets make us deal in,
But some old worn-out Jokes of their Retailing:
From Sages of our own, or former Times,
Transvers'd from Prose, perhaps transpros'd from Rhimes.
How long the Tragick Muse her Station kept,⎫
How Guilt was humbl'd, and how Tyrants wept,⎬
Forgetting still how often Hearers slept.⎭
Perhaps, for Change, you, now and then, by Fits,
Are told that Criticks are the Bane of Wits;
How they turn Vampyres, being dead and damn'd,
And with the Blood of living Bards are cramm'd:
That Poets thus tormented die, and then
The Devil gets in them, and they suck agen.
Thus modern Bards, like Bays, their Prologues frame,⎫
For this, and that, and every Play the same,⎬
Which you, most justly, neither praise nor blame.⎭
As something must be spoke, no matter what;
No Friends are now by Prologues lost or got;
By such Harangues we raise nor Spleen, nor Pity—
Thus ends this idle, but important Ditty.

Dramatis Personæ.