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The best actors do not let the wheels show.
The best actors do not let the wheels show.
Prologues like compliments are loss of time;
'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme.
Prologues like compliments are loss of time;
'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme.
See, how these rascals use me! They will not let my play run;
and yet they steal my thunder.
See, how these rascals use me! They will not let my play run;
and yet they steal my thunder.
It's very hard! Oh, Dick, my boy,
It's very hard one can't enjoy
A little private spouting;
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It's very hard! Oh, Dick, my boy,
It's very hard one can't enjoy
A little private spouting;
But sure as Lear or Hamlet lives,
Up comes our master, Bounce! and gives
The tragic Muse a routing.
The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give.
For we that live to please, must please to live.
The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give.
For we that live to please, must please to live.
Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's read more
Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's you: the table is the place:
The carvers we: the prologue is the grace.
Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish,
Though we're in Lent, I doubt you're still for flesh.
Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough.
Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepperproof?
Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true
Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew.
Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join.
Are butcher's meat, a battle's sirloin:
Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste,
Are water-gruel without salt or taste.
If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good
play needs no epilogue.
If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good
play needs no epilogue.
There still remains to mortify a wit
The many-headed monster of the pit.
There still remains to mortify a wit
The many-headed monster of the pit.
