WHEN IT WAS FIRST ACTED.
Is it not strange to hear a poet say,
He comes to ask you, how you like the play?
You have not seen it yet: alas! 'tis true;
But now your love and hatred judge, not you:
And cruel factions (bribed by interest) come,
Not to weigh merit, but to give their doom.
Our poet, therefore, jealous of th' event,
And (though much boldness takes) not confident,
Has sent me, whither you, fair ladies, too,
Sometimes upon as small occasions, go;
And, from this scheme, drawn for the hour and day,
Bid me enquire the fortune of his play.
The curtain drawn discovers two Astrologers; the prologue is presented to them.
1 Astrol. reads, A figure of the heavenly bodies in their several Apartments, Feb. the 5th, half-an-hour after three afternoon, from whence you are to judge the success of a new play, called the Wild Gallant.
2 Astrol. Who must judge of it, we, or these gentlemen? We'll not meddle with it, so tell your poet. Here are, in this house, the ablest mathematicians in Europe for his purpose.
They will resolve the question, ere they part.
1 Att. Yet let us judge it by the rules of art;
First Jupiter, the ascendant's lord disgraced,
In the twelfth house, and near grim Saturn placed,
Denote short life unto the play:—
2 Ast. —Jove yet,
In his apartment Sagittary, set
Under his own root, cannot take much wrong.
1 Ast. Why then the life's not very short, nor long;
2 Ast. The luck not very good, nor very ill;
Prole. That is to say, 'tis as 'tis taken still.
1 Ast. But, brother, Ptolemy the learned says,
'Tis the fifth house from whence we judge of plays.
Venus, the lady of that house, I find
Is Peregrine; your play is ill-designed;
It should have been but one continued song,
Or, at the least, a dance of three hours long.
Ast. But yet the greatest mischief does remain,
The twelfth apartment bears the lords of Spain;
Whence I conclude, it is your author's lot,
To be endangered by a Spanish plot.
Prolo. Our poet yet protection hopes from you,
But bribes you not with any thing that's new;
Nature is old, which poets imitate,
And, for wit, those, that boast their own estate,
Forget Fletcher and Ben before them went,
Their elder brothers, and that vastly spent;
So much, 'twill hardly be repair'd again,
Not, though supplied with all the wealth of Spain,
This play is English, and the growth your own;
As such, it yields to English plays alone.
He could have wish'd it better for your sakes,
But that, in plays, he finds you love mistakes:
Besides, he thought it was in vain to mend,
What you are bound in honour to defend;
That English wit, howe'er despised by some,
Like English valour, still may overcome.
PROLOGUE,
WHEN REVIVED.
As some raw squire, by tender mother bred,
'Till one-and-twenty keeps his maidenhead;
(Pleased with some sport, which he alone does find;
And thinks a secret to all humankind;)
'Till mightily in love, yet half afraid,
He first attempts the gentle dairy maid:
Succeeding there, and, led by the renown
Of Whetston's park, he comes at length to town;
Where entered, by some school-fellow or friend,
He grows to break glass windows in the end:
His valour too, which with the watch began,
Proceeds to duel, and he kills his man.
By such degrees, while knowledge he did want,
Our unfledged author writ a Wild Gallant.
He thought him monstrous lewd, (I lay my life)
Because suspected with his landlord's wife;
But, since his knowledge of the town began,
He thinks him now a very civil man;
And, much ashamed of what he was before,
Has fairly play'd him at three wenches more.
'Tis some amends his frailties to confess;
Pray pardon him his want of wickedness:
He's towardly, and will come on apace;
His frank confession shows he has some grace.
You baulked him when he was a young beginner,
And almost spoiled a very hopeful sinner;
But if once more you slight his weak endeavour,
For aught I know, he may turn tail forever;