THE text is done, and now for application,
And when that's ended, pass your approbation.
Tho' the conspiracy's prevented here,
Methinks I see another hatching there;

And there's a certain faction fain would sway,
If they had strength enough, and damn this play.
But this the author bid me boldly say;

If any take his plainness in ill part,

He's glad on't from the bottom of his heart;
Poets in honour of the truth should write,
With the same spirit brave men for it fight;
And tho' against him causeless hatreds rise,
And daily where he goes of late, he spies
The scowls of sullen and revengeful eyes:
'Tis what he knows with much contempt to bear,
And serves a cause too good to let him fear:
He fears no poison from an incens'd drab,
No ruffian's five-foot-sword, nor rascal's stab;
Nor any other snares of mischief laid,
Not a Rose-alley cudgel-ambuscade*;
From any private cause where malice reigns,
Or gen'ral pique all blockheads have to brains:
Nothing shall daunt his pen when truth does call;
No, not the picture-mangler at Guildhall.
The rebel tribe, of which that vermin's one,
Have now set forward, and their course begun;
And while that prince's figure they deface,
As they before had massacred his name,
Durst their base fears but look him in the face,
They'd use his person as they've us'd his fame:

}

* A severe attack upon Dryden, in Rose-street, Covent-garden, December 1679; in consequence, it is supposed, of his being reputed the author of the Essay on Satire. The preceding verse probably contains an allusion to the stabbing of Mr. Scroop by sir Thomas Armstrong, in the pit of the Duke's Theatre; mentioned by Langbaine (Dram. Poets, p. 460.)

The rascal that cut the duke of York's picture. 0.-The same incident is referred to by other writers. The picture was cut from the legs downwards.

A face in which such lineaments they read
Of that great martyr's, whose rich blood they shed,
That their rebellious hate they still retain,
And in his son would murder him again.
With indignation, then, let each brave heart,
Rouse and unite to take his injur'd part;
Till royal love and goodness call him home*,
And songs of triumph meet him as he come;
Till heav'n his honour and our peace restore,
And villains never wrong his virtue more.

The duke was then in a sort of exile in Scotland.

THE ATHEIST;

OR,

THE SECOND PART

OF

THE SOLDIER'S FORTUNE.

-Hic noster auctores habet;
Quorum æmulari exoptat negligentiam
Potius, quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.
Dehinc ut quiescant porrò, moneo, et desinant
Maledicere, malefacta ne noscant sua.

TERENT. PROLOG. AD AND.

THIS is intended as a sequel to the "Soldier's Fortune," (Vol. II.) and, like that comedy, is composed of a mass of adventures, without much order of succession, or coherence of plan. The principal aim, in both pieces, has obviously been to engage the imagination by bustle, novelty, and profusion of incidents, rather than, by just delineation of character, exactitude of plot, and propriety of sentiment, to win the slow approbation of the judgment. The dialogue has more freedom and vivacity than the other comedies, and abounds with that species of licentious wit which secured it's favourable reception with audiences whose minds were corrupted, by habit and example, to a perfect relish of grossness, and contempt of decency. Marriage, and all those decorums which embellish social life, and may be said to hold society most firmly together, are despised and ridiculed; and unbounded freedom, or rather licentiousness, extolled and set up in their stead. The play receives it's principal title from a character too frequent at that period: at least, if real Atheists were few, there were numerous pretenders to the title. The loose wits at the court of Charles II. affected, as a fashionable distinction, to discard all belief in religion, either natural or revealed; and even the king himself was sometimes believed not to be unfavourable to the same mode of thinking. The satire was, therefore, perhaps, properly directed. But, at present, when Atheism has