Sidor som bilder
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That he's more wit than any man i' th' play;

30

But of so ill a mingle with the rest, As when a parrot's taught to break a jest.

Thus, aiming to be fine, they make a show, As tawdry squires in country churches do.

Things well consider'd, 't is so hard to make A comedy which should the knowing take, That our dull poet, in despair to please, Does humbly beg, by me, his writ of ease. "T is a land tax, which he 's too poor to pay; You therefore must some other impost lay.

40

Would you but change, for serious plot and

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PROLOGUE, EPILOGUE, AND SONGS FROM SIR MARTIN MAR-ALL

OR, THE FEIGN'D INNOCENCE

[This comedy is an adaptation of Molière's L'Etourdi. Downes states that the Duke of Newcastle gave Dryden a bare translation from Molière, which our poet adapted for the English stage. Pepys saw the play on August 16, 1667, when he terms it the new play acted yesterday . . . made by my Lord Duke of Newcastle, but, as everybody says, corrected by Dryden." It was entered on the Stationers' Register June 24, 1668 (Malone, I, 1, 93), as the Duke's play, and published anonymously in that year. Dryden's name did not appear on the title-page until 1691.

The first song is printed also in Westminster Drollery; or, a Choice Collection of the Newest Songs and Poems, 1671.]

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[This play was written by Thomas Tomkis, of Trinity College, Cambridge, where it was acted March 9, 1615, on the occasion of a visit by King James I. Pepys saw a revival of it, doubtless that for which Dryden wrote this prologue, on February 22, 1668. The prologue is printed anonymously in the Covent Garden Drollery, 1672; and with Dryden's name in Miscellany Poems, 1684, from which this text is taken.

Since The Alchemist was acted in 1610, there is no possible truth in Dryden's assertion in lines 5-10.]

To say, this comedy pleas'd long ago,

Is not enough to make it pass you now.
Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit;
When few men censur'd, and when fewer
writ.

And Jonson, of those few the best, chose this,

As the best model of his masterpiece.
Subtle was got by our Albumazar,
That Alchymist by his Astrologer;

Here he was fashion'd, and we may sup

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But, gentlemen, you're all concern'd in this;

You are in fault for what they do amiss: For they their thefts still undiscover'd think,

And durst not steal, unless you please to wink.

Perhaps, you may award by your decree, They should refund; but that can never be. For should you letters of reprisal seal, These men write that which no man else would steal.

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WHEN first our poet set himself to write, Like a young bridegroom on his weddingnight

He laid about him, and did so bestir him,
His Muse could never lie in quiet for him:
But now his honeymoon is gone and past,
Yet the ungrateful drudgery must last,
And he is bound, as civil husbands do,
To strain himself, in complaisance to you;
To write in pain, and counterfeit a bliss
Like the faint smackings of an after-kiss. 10
But you, like wives ill-pleas'd, supply his

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My part being small, I have had time today

To mark your various censures of our play:
First, looking for a judgment or a wit,
Like Jews I saw 'em scatter'd thro' the pit;
And where a knot of smilers lent an ear
To one that talk'd, I knew the foe was
there.

The club of jests went round; he who had

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Among the rest they kept a fearful stir
In whisp'ring that he stole th' Astrologer;
And said, betwixt a French and English plot
He eas'd his half-tir'd Muse, on pace and

trot.

Up starts a Mounsieur, new come o'er and

warm

In the French stoop, and the pull-back o' th' arm:

"Morbleu," dit-il, and cocks, "I am a rogue, But he has quite spoil'd The Feign'd Astrologue."

"Pox," says another, "here 's so great a stir With a son of a whore farce that's regular; A rule, where nothing must decorum

shock!

Damme 'ts as dull as dining by the clock. 20 An evening! Why the devil should we be vex'd

Whether he gets the wench this night or next?"

When I heard this, I to the poet went, Told him the house was full of discontent, And ask'd him what excuse he could in

vent.

He neither swore nor storm'd as poets do, But, most unlike an author, vow'd 't was

true;

Yet said, he us'd the French like enemies,

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