THE PROLOGUE TO HIS MAJESTY At the first PLAY presented at the Cock-pit in WHITEHALL, Being part of that Noble Entertainment which Their MAIESTIES received Novemb. 19. from his Grace the Duke of ALBEMARLE.
GReatest of Monarchs, welcome to this place
Which
Majesty so oft was wont to grace
Before our Exile, to divert the Court,
And ballance weighty Cares with harmless sport
This truth we can to our advantage say,
They that would have no
KING, would have no
Play:
The
Laurel and the
Crown together went,
Had the same
Foes, and the same
Banishment:
The Ghosts of their great Ancestors they fear'd,
VVho by the art of conjuring Poets rear'd,
Our
HARRIES & our
EDWARDS long since dead
Still on the Stage a march of Glory tread:
Those Monuments of Fame (they thought) would stain
And teach the People to despise their Reign:
Nor durst they look into the Muses Well,
Least the cleer Spring their ugliness should tell;
Affrighted with the shadow of their Rage,
They broke the Mirror of the times, the Stage;
The Stage against them still maintain'd the War,
When they debauch'd the
Pulpit and the
Bar.
Though to be
Hypocrites, be our Praise alone,
'Tis our peculiar boast that we were none.'
What er'e they taught, we practis'd what was true,
And something we had learn'd of honor too,
VVhen by Your Danger, and our Duty prest,
VVe acted in the Field, and not in Test;
Then for the
Cause our Tyring-house they sack't,
And silenc't us that they alone might
act;
And (to our shame) most dext'rously they do it,
Out-act the Players, and out-ly the Poet;
But all the other Arts appear'd so scarce,
Ours were the
Moral Lectures, theirs the
Farse:
This spacious Land their Theater became,
And they
Grave Counsellors, and
Lords in Name;
VVhich these Mechanicks Personate so ill
That ev'n the Oppressed with contempt they fill,
But when the Lyons dreadful skin they took,
They roar'd so loud that the whole Forrest shook;
The noise kept all the Neighborhood in awe,
VVho thought 't was the true Lyon by his Pawe.
If feigned Vertue could such Wonders do,
VVhat may we not expect from this that's true!
But this Great Theme must serve another Age,
To fill our Story, and adorne our Stage.
LONDON, Printed for G. Bedell and T. Collins, at the Middle-Temple Gate in Fleet-street. 1660.