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EPILOGUE.

BY MR. SMITH.

OUR poet, gentlemen, thought to steal away,
Hoping those wretched rhymes, i' th' end o' th' play,
Might serve for epilogue; for truly he
Takes epilogues for arrant bribery;

H' observes your poet, in our modern plays,
Humbly sheweth,-and then as humbly prays:
So that it can't be said, what they have writ
Was without fear, though often without wit.
He trusts (as ye say papists do) to merit;
Leaves you (like quakers) to be mov'd by th' spirit.
But since that epilogues are so much in vogue,
Take this as prologue to the epilogue.

BY MR. HARRIS.

Some, as soon as th' enter, we wish 'em gone;
Taking their visit as a visitation:

Yet when they go, there are certain grimaces
(Which, in plain English, is but making faces)
That we, for manners' sake to all allow.

The poet's parting; don't rise, but smile and bow;
And's back being turn'd, ye may take the liberty
To turn him, and all h' as writ, to raillery.
Now, as I shall be sav'd, were I as you,
I'd make no bones on 't-why, 'tis but his due.
A fop! in this brave, licentious age,
To bring his musty morals on the stage?
Rhyme us to reason? and our lives redress
In metre, as Druids did the Savages?
Affront the free-born vices of the nation?
And bring dull virtue into reputation?
Virtue! would any man of common sense
Pretend to 't? why virtue now is impudence;
And such another modest play would blast
Our new stage, and put your palates out of taste.
We told him, Sir, 'tis whisper'd in the pit,
This may be common sense, but 'tis not wit;
That has a flaming spirit, and stirs the blood.
That's bawdry, said he, if rightly understood;
Which our late poets make their chiefest tasks,
As if they writ only to th' vizard-masks.
Nor that poetick rage, which hectors heaven,
Your writer's style, like 's temper, 's grown more even;
And he's afraid to shock their tender ears,

Whose God, say they, 's the fiction of their fears;
Your moral's to no purpose. He replied,

Some men talk'd idly just before they died,

And yet we heard them with respect :-"Twas all he said.
Well, we may count him now as good as dead:
And, since ghosts have left walking, if you please,
We'll let our virtuous poet rest in peace.

EDITIONS.

The Adventures of Five Hours. A Tragi-Comedy. -Non ego Ventosa Plebis suffragia venor. Horat. Febr. 21°, 1662. Imprimatur, John Berkenhead.London. Printed for Henry Herringman, at the Anchor, in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. 1663. fol.*

The Adventures of Five Houres: a Tragi-Comedy. As it is acted at His Royal Highness the Duke of York's Theatre. The third impression. Revis'd and corrected by the author, Sir Samuel Tuke, Kt. and Bart. Nonumque prematur in Annum. Horat. de Art. Poet. London: Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman, at the sign of the Blew Anchor, on the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. 1671. 4to.

*The title of the copy of 1664 is precisely the same as that of the first edition. It is in 4to.

ELVIRA;

OR,

THE WORST NOT ALWAYS TRUE.

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