Nor is it all in provender and breed,

He must be try'd, and strain'd, to mend his speed.
A favour'd poet, like a pamper'd horse,

Will strain his eye-balls out to win the course.
Do you but in your wisdom vote it fit,

To yield due succours to this war of wit,
The buskins with more grace should tread the stage,
Love sigh in softer strains, heroes less rage;
Satire shall shew a triple row of teeth,

And Comedy shall laugh your fops to death:
Wit shall refine, and Pegasus shall foam,
And soar in search of ancient Greece and Rome.
And since the nation's in the conqu❜ring fit,
As you by arms, we'll conquer France in wit.
The work were over, could our poets write
With half the spirit that our soldiers fight.

Planters, Indians, Negroes, men, women, and children. SCENE, Surinam, a colony in the West-Indies, at the times of the action of this Tragedy in the possession of the English.

OROONOKO.

ACTI. SCENE I.

Enter WELLDON following LUCY.

Lucy.

WHAT will this come to? What can it end in? you have persuaded me to leave dear England, and dearer London, the place of the world most worthy living in, to follow you a husband hunting into America: I thought husbands grew in these plantations.

Well. Why so they do, as thick as oranges ripening one under another. Week after week they drop into some woman's mouth: 'tis but a little patience, spreading your apron in expectation, and one of 'em will fall into your lap at last.

Luc. Ay, so you say, indeed.

Well. But you have left dear London, you say: pray what have you left in London that was very dear to you, that had not left you before?

Luc. Speak for yourself, sister.

The

Well. Nay, I'll keep you in countenance. young fellows, you know, the dearest part of the town, and without whom London had been a wilderness to you and me, had forsaken us a great while. Luc. Forsaken us? I don't know that ever they had

Well. Forsaken us the worst way, child; that is, did not think us worth having; they neglected us, no longer designed upon us, they were tired of us. Women in London are like the rich silks, they are out of fashion a great while before they wear out

Luc. The devil take the fashion, I say.

Well. You may tumble them over and over at their first coming up, and never disparage their price; but they fall upon wearing immediately, lower and lower in their value, till they come to the broker at last. "Luc. Aye, aye, that's the merchant they deal "with. The men would have us at their own scan"dalous rates; their plenty makes them wanton, and " in a little time, I suppose, they won't know what "they would have of the women themselves.

"Well. Oh, yes, they know what they would have. "They would have a woman give the town a pattern "of her person and beauty, and not stay in it so long "to have the whole piece worn out. They would "have the good face only discovered, and not the "folly that commonly goes along with it. They say "there is a vast stock of beauty in the nation, but a

great part of it lies in unprofitable hands; there