The play is at an end, but where's the plot? That circumstance our poet Bayes forgot. And we can boast, tho' 'tis a plotting age, No place is freer from it than the stage. The ancients plotted, tho', and strove to please With sense that might be understood with ease; They every scene with so much wit did store, That who brought any in, went out with more. But this new way of wit does so surprise, Men lose their wits in wond'ring where it lies. If it be true, that monstrous births presage The following mischiefs that afflict the age, And sad disasters to the state proclaim; Plays without head or tail may do the same. Wherefore for ours, and for the kingdom's peace, May this prodigious way of writing cease. Let's have at least, once in our lives, a time When we may hear some reason, not all rhyme. We have this ten years felt its influence; Pray let this prove a year of prose and sense. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: The usual language of the Honourable Edward Howard, Esq., at the rehearsal of his plays.] [Footnote 2: He who writ this, not without pain and thought, From French and English theatres has brought Th' exactest rules, by which a play is wrought. The unity of action, place, and time; The scenes unbroken; and a mingled chime, Of Johnson's humour, with Corneille's rhyme. _Prologue to the Maiden Queen._ ] [Footnote 3: See the two prologues to the "Maiden Queen."] [Footnote 4: There were printed papers given the audience before the acting the "Indian Emperor;" telling them that it was the sequel of the "Indian Queen," part of which play was written by Mr. Bayes, &c.] [Footnote 5: "Persons, egad, I vow to Gad, and all that," is the constant style of Failer in the "Wild Gallant:" for which, take this short speech, instead of many: "_Failer._ Really, madam, I look upon you, as a person of such worth, and all that, that I vow to Gad, I honour you of all persons in the world; and tho' I am a person that am inconsiderable in the world, and all that, madam, yet for a person of your worth and excellency I would," &c.--"Wild Gallant," p. 8.] [Footnote 6: He contracted with the King's company of actors, in the year 1668, for a whole share, to write them four plays a year.] [Footnote 7: In ridicule of this: "So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh, Look up, and see it gathering in the sky; Each calls his mate to shelter in the groves, Leaving, in murmurs, their unfinish'd loves; Perch'd on some dropping branch, they sit alone, And coo, and hearken to each other's moan." "Conquest of Granada," Part ii. p. 48. ] [Footnote 8: "I am the evening dark as night."--"Slighted Maid," p. 49.] [Footnote 9: "Let the men 'ware the ditches. Maids look to their breeches, We'll scratch them with briars and thistles."--"Slighted Maid," p. 49. ]