For ill men, conscious of their inward guilt,
Think the best actions on by-ends are built.
And yet my silence had not 'scap'd their
spite;

Then, envy had not suffer'd me to write;
For, since I could not ignorance pretend,
Such worth I must or envy or commend.
So many candidates there stand for wit,
A place in court is scarce so hard to get:
In vain they crowd each other at the door;
For ev'n reversions are all begg'd before: 20
Desert, how known soe'er, is long delay'd;
And then, too, fools and knaves are better
paid.

Yet, as some actions bear so great a name,
That courts themselves are just for fear of

That 't is no longer feign'd, 't is real love,
Where nature triumphs over wretched art;
We only warm the head, but you the heart.
Always you warm! and if the rising year,
As in hot regions, bring the sun too near,
'Tis but to make your fragrant spices blow,
Which in our colder climates will not grow.
They only think you animate your theme 41
With too much fire, who are themselves all
phle'me.

Prizes would be for lags of slowest pace,
Were cripples made the judges of the race.
Despise those drones, who praise, while
they accuse

Now, poets, if your fame has been his

care,

Allow him all the candor you can spare. 20
A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day;
Like Hectors, in at every petty fray.
Let those find fault whose wit's so very
small,

They've need to show that they can think at all;

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive below.

Fops may have leave to level all they can, As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.

30

But, as the rich, when tir'd with daily feasts,

For change, become their next poor tenant's guests,

Drink hearty draughts of ale from plain brown bowls,

And snatch the homely rasher from the coals;

So you, retiring from much better cheer, For once, may venture to do penance here. And since that plenteous autumn now is

[This tragedy, by Lee, was published in 1678, being licensed for the press on March 28. The following epilogue is taken from the first edition. Scott prints another epilogue, from a broadside, but gives no proof that it is by Dryden.]

You've seen a pair of faithful lovers die: And much you care, for most of you will cry,

'T was a just judgment on their constancy.

For, Heav'n be thank'd, we live in such an age,

When no man dies for love, but on the stage:

And ev'n those martyrs are but rare in plays;

A cursed sign how much true faith decays. Love is no more a violent desire;

"T is a mere metaphor, a painted fire. In all our sex, the name, examin'd well, 10

OR, MR. LIMBERHAM

[In a chronological list of his plays which Dryden printed with King Arthur in 1691 (see Malone, I, 1; 56, 218, 219), this comedy is placed between All for Love and Edipus. Hence it was probably acted early in 1678; though, perhaps because of its ill success on the stage, it was not published until late in 1679, when it is entered on the Term Catalogue for Michaelmas Term (November). The first edition is dated 1630. This play and Edipus were both printed for R. Bentley and M. Magnes;" Dryden had evidently quarreled with his former publisher Herringman, to whom a little later (1682) he devoted a sarcastic line (line 105) in Mac Flecknoe.]

Let them, who the rebellion first began
To wit, restore the monarch, if they can;
Our author dares not be the first bold man.
He, like the prudent citizen, takes care
To keep for better marts his staple ware;
His toys are good enough for Sturbridge
fair.

21

Tricks were the fashion; if it now be spent,
"Tis time enough at Easter to invent;
No man will make up a new suit for Lent.
If now and then he takes a small pretense,
To forage for a little wit and sense,
Pray pardon him, he meant you no offense.
Next summer, Nostradamus tells, they say,
That all the critics shall be shipp'd away,
And not enow be left to damn a play.
To every sail beside, good Heav'n, be kind;
But drive away that swarm with such a
wind,

That not one locust may be left behind!

I find the trick; these poets take no pity
Of one that is a member of the city.
We cheat you lawfully, and in our trades;
You cheat us basely with your common
jades.

10

Now I am married, I must sit down by it, But let me keep my dear-bought spouse in quiet;

Let none of you damn'd Woodalls of the pit

Put in for shares to mend our breed, in wit: We know your bastards from our flesh and blood,

Not one in ten of yours e'er comes to good. In all the boys their fathers' virtues shine, But all the female fry turn Pugs like

mine.

When these grow up, Lord, with what rampant gadders

Our counters will be throng'd, and roads with padders !

20

[This comedy was by Thomas Shadwell. Two speeches by Lump, in the first act, indicate that it was first acted on March 21, 1678. It was first printed in the next year. After his quarrel with Shadwell, Dryden gave this same prologue to Aphra Behn for her tragicomedy The Widow Ranter, or The History of Bacon in Virginia, published in 1690. The present text is from the first edition of Shadwell's play.]

HEAV'N Save ye, gallants, and this hopeful age!

Y' are welcome to the downfall of the stage:

The fools have labor'd long in their vocation;

And vice (the manufacture of the nation) O'erstocks the town so much, and thrives so well,

That fops and knaves grow drugs and will

not sell.

In vain our wares on theaters are shown,
When each has a plantation of his own.
His cruse ne'er fails; for whatsoe'er he
spends,

To own beyond a limb or single share;
For where the punk is common, he's a sot
Who needs will father what the parish got.

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO CEDIPUS

[This tragedy, by Dryden and Lee, was probably acted in August, 1678, since the Woolen Act (30th Charles II cap. 3), mentioned in the last line of the prologue, went into effect on the first of that month. It was printed the next year. The prologue and epilogue are without doubt by Dryden.]

PROLOGUE

WHEN Athens all the Grecian state did guide,

And Greece gave laws to all the world beside;

Then Sophocles with Socrates did sit, Supreme in wisdom one, and one in wit: And wit from wisdom differ'd not in those, But as 't was sung in verse, or said in prose. Then, Edipus, on crowded theaters,