Old men shall have good old plays to delight them;
And you, fair ladies and gallants, that slight them,
We'll treat with good new plays, if our new wits can write them.
We'll take no blundering verse, no fustain tumor,
No dribbling love, from this or that presumer;
No dull fat fool shammed on the stage for humour:[393]
For, faith, some of them such vile stuff have made,
As none but fools or fairies ever played;
But 'twas, as shopmen say, to force a trade.
We've given you tragedies, all sense defying,