Almanz. Thus, when I have no living force to

dread,

Fate finds me enemies amongst the dead!
I'm now to conquer ghosts, and to destroy
The strong impressions of a bridal joy.

Almah. You've yet a greater foe than these can be,

Virtue opposes you, and modesty.

Almans. From a false fear that modesty does grow,

And thinks true love, because 'tis fierce, its foe. "Tis but the wax whose seals on virgins stay: Let it approach love's fire, 'twill melt away :But I have lived too long; I never knew, When fate was conquer'd, I must combat you. I thought to climb the steep ascent of love; But did not think to find a foe above.

"Tis time to die, when you my bar must be, Whose aid alone could give me victory; Without,

I'll pull up all the sluices of the flood,

And love, within, shall boil out all my blood.
Q. Isabel. Fear not your love should find so sad

success,

While I have power to be your patroness.
I am her parent now, and may command
So much of duty as to give her hand.

[Gives him ALMAHIDE's hand. Almah. Madam, I never can dispute your power, Or as a parent, or a conqueror;

But, when my year of widowhood expires,
Shall yield to your command, and his desires.
Almanz. Move swiftly, sun, and fly a lover's

pace;

Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race!

K. Ferd. Mean time, you shall my victories pur

sue,

The Moors in woods and mountains to subdue. Almans. The toils of war shall help to wear each day,

And dreams of love shall drive my nights away.—
Our banners to the Alhambra's turrets bear;
Then, wave our conquering crosses in the air,
And cry, with shouts of triumph,-Live and reign,
Great Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain! [Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

THEY, who have best succeeded on the stage,
Have still conform'd their genius to their age.
Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show,
When men were dull, and conversation low.
Then comedy was faultless, but 'twas coarse:
Cobb's tankard was a jest, and Otter's horse."
And, as their comedy, their love was mean;
Except, by chance, in some one labour'd scene,
Which must atone for an ill-written play.
They rose, but at their height could seldom stay.
Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;
And they have kept it since by being dead."
But, were they now to write, when critics weigh
Each line, and every word, throughout a play,
None of them, no not Jonson in his height,
Could pass, without allowing grains for weight.
Think it not envy, that these truths are told;
Our poet's not malicious, though he's bold.
'Tis not to brand them, that their faults are shown,
But, by their errors, to excuse his own.
If love and honour now are higher raised,
'Tis not the poet, but the age is praised.
Wit's now arrived to a more high degree;
Our native language more refined and free.
Our ladies and our men now speak more wit
In conversation, than those poets writ.
Then, one of these is, consequently, true;
That what this poet writes comes short of you,
And imitates you ill (which most he fears,)
Or else his writing is not worse than theirs.
Yet, though you judge (as sure the critics will,)
That some before him writ with greater skill,
In this one praise he has their fame surpast,
To please an age more gallant than the last.

* The characters alluded to are Cobb, the water-bearer, in "Every Man in his Humour ;" and Captain Otter, in "Epicane, or the Silent Woman," whose humour it was to christen his drinking cups by the names of Horse, Bull, and Bear.

DEFENCE

OF

THE EPILOGUE;

OR,

AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMATIC POETRY
OF THE LAST AGE.

THE promises of authors, that they will write again, are, in effect, a threatening of their readers with some new impertinence; and they, who perform not what they promise, will have their pardon on easy terms. It is from this consideration, that I could be glad to spare you the trouble, which I am now giving you, of a postscript, if I were not obliged, by many reasons, to write somewhat concerning our present plays, and those of our predecessors on the English stage. The truth is, I have so far engaged myself in a bold epilogue to this play, wherein I have somewhat taxed the former writing, that it was necessary for me either not to print it, or to shew that I could defend it. Yet I would so maintain my opinion of the present age, as not to be wanting in my veneration for the past:

I would ascribe to dead authors their just praises in those things wherein they have excelled us; and in those wherein we contend with them for the preeminence, I would acknowledge our advantages to the age, and claim no victory from our wit. This being what I have proposed to myself, I hope I shall not be thought arrogant when I inquire into their errors; for we live in an age so sceptical, that as it determines little, so it takes nothing from antiquity on trust; and I profess to have no other ambition in this essay, than that poetry may not go backward, when all other arts and sciences are advancing, Whoever censures me for this inquiry, let him hear his character from Horace :

Ingeniis non ille favet, plauditque sepultis,
Nostra sed impugnat; nos nostraque lividus odit,
He favours not dead wits, but hates the living.

It was upbraided to that excellent poet, that he was an enemy to the writings of his predecessor Lucilius, because he said, Lucilium lutulentum fluere, that he ran muddy; and that he ought to have retrenched from his satires many unnecessary verses. But Horace makes Lucilius himself to justify him from the imputation of envy, by telling you that he would have done the same, had he lived in an age which was more refined:

Si foret hoc nostrum fato delapsus in ævum,
Detereret sibi multa, recideret omne quod ultra
Perfectum traheretur, &c.

And, both in the whole course of that satire, and in his most admirable Epistle to Augustus, he makes it his business to prove, that antiquity alone is no plea for the excellency of a poem; but that, one age learning from another, the last (if we can suppose an equality of wit in the writers,) has the ad