Soft Bs and rough C -s,1 adieu! Earl Warwick, make your moan; The lively H- -k and you May knock up whores alone. To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd Let Jervas gratis paint, and Frowde2 Farewell Arbuthnot's raillery And Garth, the best good Christian he, Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go; Why should I stay? Both parties rage; The wits in envious feuds engage; And Homer (damn him!) calls. 1 Craggs. 2 Philip Frowde, author of the tragedies of the Fall of Saguntum, and Philotas. 8 When George I. made Rowe one of the land surveyors of the port of London. 4 Ambrose Philips, and Charles Johnson the dramatist. The love of arts lies cold and dead In Halifax's urn; And not one muse of all he fed Has yet the grace to mourn. My friends, by turns, my friends confound, Why make I friendships with the great, Or follow girls seven hours in eight?— Still idle, with a busy air, Deep whimseys to contrive; The gayest valetudinaire, Most thinking rake alive. Solicitous for others' ends, Though fond of dear repose; Careless or drowsy with my friends, Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell 5 Eustace Budgell. Adieu to all but Gay alone, Whose soul, sincere and free, Loves all mankind, but flatters none, PROLOGUE, DESIGNED FOR MR. D'URFEY'S LAST PLAY. GROWN old in rhyme, 'twere barbarous to discard Your persevering, unexhausted bard; Damnation follows death in other men, But your damn'd poet lives and writes again. yore, But ever writ, as none e'er writ before. You modern wits, should each man bring his claim, If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid. He says, poor poets lost, while players won, Let ease, his last request, be of your giving, PROLOGUE TO THE "THREE HOURS AFTER MARRIAGE."1 AUTHORS are judg'd by strange capricious rules: The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools: Yet sure the best are most severely fated; By running goods these graceless owlers gain; 1 See Memoir prefixed to these volumes, p. lxi. But wit, like wine, from happier climates brought, Dash'd by these rogues, turns English common draught. They pall Moliere's and Lopez' sprightly strain, And teach dull harlequins to grin in vain. How shall our author hope a gentler fate, To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes. Let him hiss loud, to show you all he's hit. A common blessing! now 'tis yours, now mine. To keep this cap for such as will, to wear. 2 Shows a cap with ears. 8 Flings down the cap, and exit. |