Queen. Now set we forward to the assembly.—You promise, cousin, your consent?
Lys. But most unwillingly.
Queen. Philocles, I must beg your voice too.
Phil. Most joyfully I give it.
Lys. Madam, but one word more;—
Since you are so resolved,
That you may see, bold as my passion was,
'Twas only for your person, not your crown;
I swear no second love
Shall violate the flame I had for you,
But, in strict imitation of your oath,
I vow a single life.
Queen. Now, my Asteria, my joys are full;
[To ASTERIA.
The powers above, that see
The innocent love I bear to Philocles,
Have given its due reward; for by this means
The right of Lysimantes will devolve
Upon Candiope: and I shall have
This great content, to think, when I am dead,
My crown may fall on Philocles's head.
[Exeunt.
EPILOGUE, WRITTEN BY A PERSON OF HONOUR.
Our poet, something doubtful of his fate,
Made choice of me to be his advocate,
Relying on my knowledge in the laws;
And I as boldly undertook the cause.
I left my client yonder in a rant,
Against the envious, and the ignorant,
Who are, he says, his only enemies:
But he condemns their malice, and defies
The sharpest of his censurers to say,
Where there is one gross fault in all his play.
The language is so fitted for each part,
The plot according to the rules of art,
And twenty other things he bid me tell you;
But I cried, e'en go do't yourself for Nelly.[A]
Reason with judges, urged in the defence
Of those they would condemn, is insolence;
I therefore wave the merits of his play,
And think it fit to plead this safer way.
If when too many in the purchase share,
Robbing's not worth the danger nor the care;
The men of business must, in policy,
Cherish a little harmless poetry,
All wit would else grow up to knavery.
Wit is a bird of music, or of prey;
Mounting, she strikes at all things in her way.
But if this birdlime once but touch her wings,
On the next bush she sits her down and sings.
I have but one word more; tell me, I pray,
What you will get by damning of our play?
A whipt fanatic, who does not recant,
Is, by his brethren, called a suffering saint;
And by your hands should this poor poet die,
Before he does renounce his poetry,
His death must needs confirm the party more,
Than all his scribbling life could do before;
Where so much zeal does in a sect appear,
'Tis to no purpose, 'faith, to be severe.
But t'other day, I heard this rhyming fop
Say,—Critics were the whips, and he the top;
For, as a top spins more, the more you baste her,
So, every lash you give, he writes the faster.
[Footnote A: The epilogue appears to have been spoken by Nell Gwynn.]