Spoken by Mr. Smith.
So hard the times are, and so thin the Town,
Though but one Playhouse, that must too lie down;
And when we fail, what will the Poets do?
They live by us as we are kept by you:
When we disband, they no more Plays will write,
But make Lampoons, and libel ye in spite;
Discover each false Heart that lies within,
Nor Man nor Woman shall in private sin;
The precise whoring Husband’s haunts betray,
Which the demurer Lady to repay,
In his own coin does the just debt defray.
The brisk young Beauty linked to Lands and Age,
Shuns the dull Property and strokes the youthful Page;
And if the Stripling apprehend not soon,
Turns him aside, and takes the brawny Groom;
Whilst the kind Man so true a Husband proves,
To think all’s well done by the thing he loves;
Knows he’s a Cuckold, yet content to bear
Whatever Heaven sends, or Horns or lusty Heir.
Fops of all sorts he draws more artfully,
Than ever on the Stage did Nokes or Leigh:
And Heaven be prais’d when these are Scarce, each Brother
O’ th’ Pen contrives to set on one another.
These are the effects of angry Poets Rage,
Driven from their Winter-Quarters on the Stage;
And when we go, our Women vanish too,
What will the well-fledg’d keeping Gallant do?
And where but here can he expect to find
A gay young Damsel managed to his mind,
Who ruins him, and yet seems wondrous kind?
One insolent and false, and what is worse,
Governs his Heart, and manages his Purse;
Makes him whatever she’d have him to believe,
Spends his Estate, then learns him how to live?
I hope those weighty Considerations will
Move ye to keep us altogether still;
To treat us equal to our great Desert,
And pay your Tributes with a franker Heart;
If not, th’ aforesaid Ills will come, and we must part.