Prologues, like bells to churches, toll you in
With chiming verse, till the dull plays begin;
With this sad difference though, of pit and pew,
You damn the poet, but the priest damns you:
But priests can treat you at your own expence,
And gravely call you fools without offence.
Poets, poor devils, have ne'er your folly shown,
But, to their cost, you proved it was their own:
For, when a fop's presented on the stage,
Straight all the coxcombs in the town engage;