Were wit like honour, to be won by fighting,
How few just judges would there be of writing!
Then you would leave this villainous back-biting.
Your talents lie how to express your spite;
But, where is he who knows to praise aright?
You praise like cowards, but like critics fight.
Ladies, be wise, and wean these yearling calves,
Who, in your service too, are meer faux braves;
They judge, and write, and fight, and love--by halves.
Footnotes:
1. The humour of this intended prologue turns upon the unwillingness
displayed to attend King William into Ireland by many of the
nobility and gentry, who had taken arms at the Revolution. The
truth is, that, though invited to go as volunteers, they could not
but consider themselves as hostages, of whom William did not chuse
to lose sight, lest, while he was conquering Ireland, he might,
perchance, lose England, by means of the very men by whom he had
won it. The disbanding of the royal regiment had furnished a
subject for the satirical wit of Buckingham, at least, such a piece
is printed in his Miscellanies; and for that of Shadwell, in his
epilogue to Bury-fair. But Shadwell was now poet-laureat, and his
satire was privileged, like the wit of the ancient royal jester.
Our author was suspected of disaffection, and liable to
misconstruction: For which reason, probably, he declined this
sarcastic prologue, and substituted that which follows, the tone of
which is submissive, and conciliatory towards the government.
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