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Promise him well, before the play begin;
For he would fain be cozened into sin.
'Tis not but that he knows you mean to fail;
But if you leave him after being frail,
He'll have at least a fair pretence to rail;
To call you base, and swear you used him ill,
And put you in the new Deserters' Bill.
Lord, what a troop of perjured men we see ;
Enough to fill another Mercury!*

But this the ladies may with patience brook;
Theirs are not the first colours you forsook.
He would be loth the beauties to offend;
But if he should, he's not too old to mend.
He's a young plant, in his first year of bearing,

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But his friend swears he will be worth the rearing.
His glow is still upon him, though 'tis true
He's yet unripe, yet take him for the blue.
You think an apricot half green is best,

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There's sweet and sour, and one side good at least.
Mangos and berries, whose nourishment is little,
Though not for food, are yet preserved for pickle.
So this green writer may pretend at least
To whet your stomachs for a better feast.
He makes this difference in the sexes too;
He sells to men, he gives himself to you.
To both he would contribute some delight;
A mere poetical hermaphrodite,

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Thus he's equipped, both to be wooed and woo,
With arms offensive, and defensive too;
'Tis hard, he thinks, if neither part will do.

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO "THE PRINCESS
OF CLEVES."†

1681.

PROLOGUE.

LADIES! (I hope there's none behind to hear,)
I long to whisper something in your ear,
A secret, which does much my mind perplex:
There's treason in the play against our sex.

A newspaper of the time, probably "The Protestant Mercury."

This Prologue and Epilogue to Lee's play of "The Princess of Cleves" were published in Dryden's first volume of "Miscellany Poems," 1684 The play was produced at the theatre in Dorset Gardens in 1681, and probably at the end of the year, after the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel," which took place in November. Otherwise the line in the Prologue,

"Achitophel's not half so false to David,"

would hardly have found a place in it. The play was not published till 1689, and Dryden's Prologue and Epilogue were not published with it. Scott, following Broughton, has made the mistake of giving 1689 as the date of this Prologue and Epilogue.

A man that's false to love, that vows and cheats,
And kisses every living thing he meets;
A rogue in mode, I dare not speak too broad,
One that does something to the very bawd.
Out on him, traitor, for a filthy beast!
Nay, and he's like the pack of all the rest :
None of 'em stick at mark; they all deceive.
Some Jew has changed the text, I half believe;
Their Adam cozened our poor grandame Eve.
To hide their faults they rap out oaths, and tear;
Now though we lie, we're too well-bred to swear.
So we compound for half the sin we owe,
But men are dipt for soul and body too;

And, when found out, excuse themselves, pox cant 'em!
With Latin stuff, Perjuria ridet amantum.

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I'm not book-learned, to know that word in vogue,
But I suspect 'tis Latin for a rogue.

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I'm sure, I never heard that scritch-owl hollowed

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In my poor ears, but separation followed.

How can such perjured villains e'er be saved?
Achitophel's not half so false to David.
With vows and soft expressions to allure,
They stand, like foremen of a shop, demure:
No sooner out of sight, but they are gadding,
And for the next new face ride out a padding.
Yet, by their favour, when they have been kissing,
We can perceive the ready money missing.
Well! we may rail; but 'tis as good e'en wink;
Something we find, and something they will sink.
But, since they're at renouncing, 'tis our parts
To trump their diamonds, as they trump our hearts.

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EPILOGUE.

A qualm of conscience brings me back agen,
To make amends to you bespattered men.
We women love like cats, that hide their joys
By growling, squalling, and a hideous noise.

I railed at wild young sparks; but without lying,
Never was man worse thought on for high-flying.
The prodigal of love gives each her part,
And squandering shows at least a noble heart.
I've heard of men, who, in some lewd lampoon,
Have hired a friend to make their valour known.
That accusation straight this question brings,
What is the man that does such naughty things?
The spaniel lover, like a sneaking fop,
Lies at our feet; he's scarce worth taking up.
'Tis true, such heroes in a play go far;
But chamber practice is not like the bar.

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* Their erroneously printed there in modern editions.

When men such vile, such faint petitions make,
We fear to give, because they fear to take;
Since modesty's the virtue of our kind,
Pray let it be to our own sex confined.
When men usurp it from the female nation,
'Tis but a work of supererogation.

We showed a princess in the play, 'tis true,
Who gave her Cæsar more than all his due ;
Told her own faults; but I should much abhor
To choose a husband for my confessor.
You see what fate followed the saint-like fool,
For telling tales from out the nuptial school.
Our play a merry comedy had proved,

Had she confessed as much to him she loved.

True Presbyterian wives the means would try :
But damned confessing is flat Popery.

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PROLOGUE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.†

1681.

THE famed Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance

Orlando and the Paladins of France,

who thither soared, and was restored. moral's true;

Records that, when our wit and sense is flown,
'Tis lodged within the circle of the moon,
In earthen jars, which one,
Set to his nose, snuffed up,
Whate'er the story be, the
The wit we lost in town we find in you.
Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
And fill their windy heads with sober sense.
When London votes with Southwark's disagree,
Here may they find their long-lost loyalty.
Here busy senates, to the old cause inclined,
May snuff the votes their fellows left behind :
Your country neighbours, when their grain grows dear,
May come, and find their last provision here;
Whereas we cannot much lament our loss,
Who neither carried back nor brought one cross.
We looked what representatives would bring,
But they helped us,-just as they did the King.

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The Princess of Cleves, in the play, confesses to her husband her love for the Duke of Nemours

The occasion of this Prologue, addressed to the University of Oxford in 1681, is not known. The reference to the Oxford Parliament,

"We looked what representatives would bring,"

fixes 1681 as the year of its delivery: and Sir Walter Scott is probably right, though Mr. R. Bell thinks otherwise, in believing that it was delivered after the dissolution of the Parliament in March. It was probably delivered at Commemoration-time. It was published in Part 3 of the "Miscellany Poems," 1693.

GG

Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth

The Sibyl's books to those who know their worth;
And though the first was sacrificed before,
These volumes doubly will the price restore.
Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prescription you are kind.
He, whose undaunted Muse with loyal rage
Has never spared the vices of the age,

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Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
Is forced to turn his satire into praise.

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PROLOGUE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.*

1681.

DISCORD and plots, which have undone our age,
With the same ruin have o'erwhelmed the stage.
Our House has suffered in the common woe,
We have been troubled with Scotch rebels too.
Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed departed,
And of our sisters all the kinder-hearted
To Edenborough gone, or coached or carted.
With bonny bluecap there they act all night

For Scotch half-crown, in English three-pence hight.
One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean,
There with her single person fills the scene.
Another, with long use and age decayed,
Dived here old woman, and rose there a maid.
Our trusty door-keepers of former time
There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme.
Tack but a copper lace to drugget suit,
And there's a hero made without dispute;
And that which was a capon's tail before
Becomes a plume for Indian emperor.
But all his subjects, to express the care
Of imitation, go, like Indians, bare;

Laced linen there would be a dangerous thing;

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It might perhaps a new rebellion bring
The Scot who wore it would be chosen king.
But why should I these renegades describe,
When you yourselves have seen a lewder tribe?
Teague has been here, and to this learned pit
With Irish action slandered English wit;
You have beheld such barbarous Macs appear
As merited a second massacre ;

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*It is inferred that this Prologue was delivered at Oxford in 1681, from the references to the departure of actors and actresses for Scotland and the theatrical representations in Edinburgh: this would have been during the Duke of York's residence in Edinburgh, which was uninterrupted from the autumn of 1680 to March 1682.

+ Printed Teg in the "Miscellany Poems," 1684.

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We speak our poet's wit, and trade in ore,
Like those who touch upon the golden shore;
Betwixt our judges can distinction make,
Discern how much and why our poems take;
Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
Whether the applause be only sound or voice.
When our fop gallants, or our city folly,

We doubt that scene which does their wonder raise,

Clap over-loud, it makes us melancholy :

And for their ignorance contemn their praise.

Should not be proud of giving you delight.

London likes grossly ; but this nicer pit

Judge then, if we who act and they who write

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Examines, fathoms, all the depths of wit;
The ready finger lays on every blot;

Knows what should justly please, and what should not.
Nature her self lies open to your view,

You judge by her what draught of her is true,
Where outlines false, and colours seem too faint,

Where bunglers daub, and where true poets paint.
But by the sacred genius of this place,
By every Muse, by each domestic grace,
Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well,
And, where you judge, presumes not to excel.
Our poets hither for adoption come,

As nations sued to be made free of Rome :
Not in the suffragating tribes to stand,
But in your utmost, last, provincial band.
If his ambition may those hopes pursue,
Who with religion loves your arts and you,

* Printed sterve in the "Miscellany Poems," 1684
The date and occasion of this Prologue are not known.

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It was printed in the "Miscellany Poems," 1684, immediately after the preceding Prologue, and it may be conjectured that it was also delivered at Oxford in 168.

"Grossly," in the gross, ir. the general.

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