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That none had so much right to be
Part of the name of stuttering T-
T--Tom -- a-- as De --- D'Ur--fey-fey.
Then Jove thus spake: "With care and pain
We form'd this name, renown'd in rhyme:
Not thine, immortal Neusgermain ! *

Cost studious cabalists more time.
Yet now, as then, you all declare,
Far hence to Egypt you'll repair,
And turn strange hi'roglyphics there,
Rather than letters longer be,

Unless i' th' name of Tom D'Urfey.

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Were
To foreign letters could I

say?

What if the Hebrew next should aim
To turn quite backward D'Urfey's name?
Should the Greek quarrel too, by Styx, I
Could never bring in Psi and Xi:
Omicron and Omega from us

Would each hope to be O in Thomas;
And all th' ambitious vowels vie,
No less than Pythagoric Y,

To have a place in Tom D'Urfey.

Then well-belov'd and trusty letters!
Cons'nants, and vowels much their betters,
We, willing to repair this breach,

And, all that in us lies, please each,
Et cæt'ra to our aid must call;
Et cat'ra represents ye all:

Et cat' ra, therefore, we decree,
Henceforth for ever join'd shall be
To the great name of Tom D'Urfey."

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* A poet, who used to make verses ending with the last syllables of the names of those persons he praised: which Voiture turned against him in a poem of the same kind.-H.

PROLOGUE

DESIGNED FOR MR D'URFEY'S LAST PLAY.

GROWN old in rhyme, 'twere barbarous to discard
Your persevering, unexhausted bard;
Damnation follows death in other men,

But
your damn'd poet lives, and writes again.
Th' adventurous lover is successful still,

Who strives to please the fair against her will:
Be kind, and make him in his wishes easy,
Who in your own despite has strove to please ye.
He scorn'd to borrow from the wits of yore,
But ever writ, as none e'er writ before.

You modern wits, should each man bring his claim,
Have desperate debentures on your fame;
And little would be left you, I'm afraid,

If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid.
From this deep fund our author largely draws,
Nor sinks his credit lower than it was.

Tho' plays for honour in old time he made,
'Tis now for better reasons-to be paid.
Believe him, he has known the world too long,
And seen the death of much immortal song.
He says, poor poets lost, while players won,
As pimps grow rich, while gallants are undone.
Tho' Tom the poet writ with ease and pleasure,
The comic Tom abounds in other treasure.
Fame is at best an unperforming cheat;
But 'tis substantial happiness, to EAT.
Let ease, his last request, be of your giving,
Nor force him to be damn'd to get his living.

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[This was the celebrated farce tripartite, in which Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot engaged, in order to ridicule Dr Woodward, and which was most meritoriously damned at the first representation. See Cibber's letter to Pope.]

AUTHORS are judg'd by strange capricious rules;
The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools:
Yet sure the best are most severely fated;
For fools are only laugh'd at, wits are hated.
Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;
But fool 'gainst fool, is barbarous civil war.
Why on all authors then should critics fall?
Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.
Condemn a play of theirs, and they evade it;
Cry,

"Damn not us, but damn the French, who
made it."

By running goods these graceless owlers gain;
Theirs are the rules of France, the plots of Spain:
But wit, like wine, from happier climates brought,
Dash'd by these rogues, turns English common
draught.

They pall Moliere's and Lopez' sprightly strain,
And teach dull Harlequins to grin in vain.

How shall our author hope a gentler fate,
Who dares most impudently not translate?
It had been civil, in these ticklish times,
To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes.

Spaniards and French abuse to the world's end
But spare Old England, lest you hurt a friend.
If any fool is by our satire bit,

Let him hiss loud, to show you all he's hit.
Poets make characters, as salesmen clothes;
We take no measure of your fops and beaus;
But here all sizes and all shapes you meet,
And fit yourselves, like chaps in Monmouth-street.
Gallants, look here! this fool's cap has an air,
Goodly and smart, with ears of Issachar.
Let no one fool engross it, or confine

A common blessing! now 'tis yours, now mine.
But poets in all ages had the care

To keep this cap for such as will, to wear.
Our author has it now (for every wit
Of course resign'd it to the next that writ)
And thus upon the stage 'tis fairly thrown;†
Let him that takes it wear it as his own.

* Shows a cap with ears. + Flings down the cap, and exit.

SANDYS'S GHOST:

OR, A PROPER NEW BALLAD ON THE NEW OVID'S METAMORPHOSES,

AS IT WAS INTENDED TO BE TRANSLATED BY
PERSONS OF QUALITY.

[Sir Samuel Garth, who published the Metamorphoses of Ovid, translated by " Dryden, Addison, Garth, Mainwaring, Congreve, Rowe, Pope, Gay, Eusden, Croxal, and other eminent hands," had himself no other share in the undertaking, than engaging the various translators in their task, and putting their labours into some order. The work was intended to supersede the ancient translation.

George Sandys, the old translator, (whose ghost is introduced in the verses), was a man of great accomplishment, and pronounced by Dryden to be the best versifier of his age. The curious reader will find many particulars respecting him, and his translation of Ovid, in the Censura Literaria, volumes 4th, 5th, and 6th. He died in 1643.]

YE lords and commons, men of wit
And pleasure about town,
Read this, ere you translate one bit
Of books of high renown.

Beware of Latin authors all

Nor think your verses sterling, Though with a golden pen you scrawl, And scribble in a berlin:

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