Prologue to "The Conquest of Granada", Part I

This jest was first of t'other house's making,
And, five times tried, has never fail'd of taking;
For 't were a shame a poet should be killed
Under the shelter of so broad a shield.
This is that hat, whose very sight did win ye
To lavish and clap as tho' the devil were in ye.
As then, for Nokes, so now I hope you be
So dull, to laugh, once more, for love of me.
"I 'll write a play," says one, "for I have got
A broad-brimm'd hat, and waist-belt, tow'rds a plot."
Says t'other: "I have one more large than that."
Thus they out-write each other with a hat!
The brim still grew with every play they writ;
And grew so large, they cover'd all the wit.
Hat was the play; 't was language, wit, and tale:
Like them that find meat, drink, and cloth in ale.
What dulness do these mungril wits confess,
When all their hope is acting of a dress!
Thus two the best comedians of the age
Must be worn out, with being blocks o' th' stage;
Like a young girl who better things has known.
Beneath their poet's impotence they groan.
See now what charity it was to save!
They thought you lik'd, what only you forgave;
And brought you more dull sense, dull sense much worse
Than brisk gay nonsense, and the heavier curse.
They bring old ir'n and glass upon the stage,
To barter with the Indians of our age.
Still they write on, and like great authors show;
But 't is as rollers in wet garden grow
Heavy with dirt, and gath'ring as they go.
May none, who have so little understood,
To like such trash, presume to praise what 's good!
And may those drudges of the stage, whose fate
Is damn'd dull farce more dully to translate,
Fall under that excise the State thinks fit
To set on all French wares, whose worst is wit.
French farce, worn out at home, is sent abroad;
And, patch'd up here, is made our English mode.
Henceforth, let poets, ere allow'd to write,
Be search'd, like duellists, before they fight,
For wheel-broad hats, dull humor, all that chaff
Which makes you mourn, and makes the vulgar laugh:
For these, in plays, are as unlawful arms,
As, in a combat, coats of mail and charms.