You know the French sure cards at time of need. }
PROLOGUE
TO
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1674.
SPOKEN BY MR HART.
Hart, who had been a captain in the civil wars, belonged to the King's company. He was an excellent actor, and particularly celebrated in the character of Othello. He left the stage, according to Cibber, on the union of the companies in 1686. But it appears from a paper published in a note on the article "Betterton" in the Biographia, that he retired in 1681, upon receiving a pension from Dr D'Avenant, then manager of the Duke's company, who in this manner bought off both Hart and Kynaston, and greatly weakened the opposite set.
Poets, your subjects, have their parts assigned,
To unbend, and to divert their sovereign's mind;
When tired with following nature, you think fit
To seek repose in the cool shades of wit,