He hath feasted you these Forty Years,
And fitted Fables for your finer Ears,
Although, at first he scarce could hit the bore;
    Yet you, with patience harking more and more,
At length have grown up to him, and made known,
The working of his Pen is now your own:
He prays you would voucsafe, for your own sake,
To hear him this once more, but sit awake.
And though he now present you with such Wool,
As from meer English Flocks his Muse can pull,
He hopes when it is made up into Cloath,
Not the most curious Head here will be loath
To wear a Hood of it; it being a Fleece,
To match, or those of Sicily, or Greece.
His Scene is Sherwood: and his Play a Tale
Of Robin Hood's inviting from the Vale
Of Be'voir, all the Shep'ards to a Feast:
Where, by the casual absence of one Guest,
The Mirth is troubled much, and in one Man,
As much of Sadness shown, as Passion can.
The sad Young Shep'ard, whom we here present,
Like his Woes Figure, dark and discontent,
    [The Sad Shep'ard passed silently over the Stage.
For his lost Love, who in the Trent is said
To have miscarried; 'lass! what knows the Head
Of a calm River, whom the Feet have drown'd?
Hear what his Sorrows are; and if they wound
Your Gentle Breasts, so that the End crown all,
Which in the scope of one day chance may fall:
Old Trent will send you more such Tales as these,
And shall grow Young again, as one doth please.
    [Here the Prologue, thinking to end, returns upon a new Purpose, and speaks on.

    But here's an Heresie of late let fall,
That Mirth by no means fits a Pastoral:

Such say so, who can make none: he presumes:
Else there's no Scene, more properly assumes
The Sock. For whence can Sport in kind arise,
But from the Rural Routs and Families?
Safe on this ground then, we not fear to day,
To Tempt you Laughter by our Rustic Play.
Wherein if we distaste, or be cry'd down,
We think we therefore shall not leave the Town;
Nor that the Fore-Wits, that would draw the rest
Unto their liking, always like the best.
The wise, and knowing Critick, will not say,
This worst, or better is, before he weigh;
Where every piece be perfect in the kind:
And then, though in themselves he difference find,
Yet if the place they require it where they stood,
The equal fitting makes them equal good.
You shall have Love, and Hate, and Jealousie,
As well as Mirth, and Rage, and Melancholy:
Or whatsoever else may either move,
Or stir affections, and your likings prove.
But that no Stile for Pastoral should go
Current, but what is stamp'd with Ah and O:
Who judgeth so, may singularly err;
As if all Poesie had one Character:
In which, what were not written, were not right,
Or that the Man who made such one poor flight,
In his whole Life, had with his winged Skill
Advanc'd him upmost on the Muses Hill.
When he like Poet yet remains, as those
Are Painters who can only make a Rose.
from such, your Wits redeem you, or your Chance,
Lest to a greater height you do advance
Of Folly, to contemn those that are known
Artificers, and trust such as are none.