Our author then, to pleaſe you in your way,
Preſents you now a bauble of a play;
In gingling rhyme, well fortify’d and ſtrong,
He fights entrench’d o’er head and ears in ſong.
If here and there ſome evil-fated line15
Should chance, thro’ inadvertency, to ſhine,
Forgive him, Beaus! he means you no offence,
But begs you, for the love of ſong and dance,
To pardon all the poetry and ſenſe.19
PROLOGUE
To Mr. Bevil Higgons’ excellent Tragedy, called
THE GENEROUS CONQUEROR.
Your comic writer is a common foe;
None can intrigue in peace, or be a beau;
Nor wanton wife nor widow can be ſped,
Not even Ruſſel[1] can inter the dead,
But ſtraight this cenſor, in his whim of wit,5
Strips and preſents you naked to the pit.
Thus critics ſhould, like theſe, be branded foes,
Who for the poiſon only ſuck the roſe;
Snarling and carping, without wit or ſenſe,
Impeach mistakes, o’erlooking excellence,10
- ↑ A famous undertaker for funerals, alluding to a comedy written by Sir Richard Steele, entitled The Funeral.
