Shape. We have escap'd the law, but yet do fear
Something that's harder answered—your sharp ear.
O, for a present sleight now to beguile
That, and deceive you but of one good smile.
'Tis that must free us: th' Author dares not look
For that good fortune, to be sav'd by's book.
To leave this blessed soil is no great woe;
Our griefs in leaving you, that make it so;
For if you shall call in those beams you lent,
'Twould ev'n at home create a banishment.
[THE LONDON CHANTICLEERS.]
EDITION.
The London Chaunticleers. A Witty Comoedy, full of Various and Delightfull Mirth. Often Acted with Great applause, and never before Published. London, Printed for Simon Miller, at the Star in St. Pauls Churchyard. 1659. 4o.
This amusing and peculiar play has never hitherto been re-published from the original edition. It is a performance, as the title-page partly intimates, considerably older than the date of publication. Mr Halliwell ("Dictionary of Old Plays," 1860, p. 144) observes: "This piece is rather an interlude than a play; but it is curious, the characters being London criers.
"From a passage in the prologue we may perhaps infer that the production originally appeared during a visitation of the plague at London, and that it was first presented (the machinery required being simple enough) on some suburban or provincial stage. The metropolis was ravaged by pestilence in 1636, which is a not unlikely date for the composition and original presentation of 'The London Chanticleers.'"