_So hard the times are, and so thin the Town, Though but one Playhouse, that must too lie down; And when we fail, what will the Poets do? They live by us as we are kept by you: When we disband, they no more Plays will write, But make Lampoons, and libel ye in spite; Discover each false Heart that lies within, Nor Man nor Woman shall in private sin; The precise whoring Husband’s haunts betray, Which the demurer Lady to repay, In his own coin does the just debt defray. The brisk young Beauty linked to Lands and Age, Shuns the dull Property and strokes the youthful Page; And if the Stripling apprehend not soon, Turns him aside, and takes the brawny Groom; Whilst the kind Man so true a Husband proves, To think all’s well done by the thing he loves; Knows he’s a Cuckold, yet content to bear Whatever Heaven sends, or Horns or lusty Heir. Fops of all sorts he draws more artfully, Than ever on the Stage did_ Nokes or Leigh: _And Heaven be prais’d when these are Scarce, each Brother O’ th’ Pen contrives to set on one another. These are the effects of angry Poets Rage, Driven from their Winter-Quarters on the Stage; And when we go, our Women vanish too, What will the well-fledg’d keeping Gallant do? And where but here can he expect to find A gay young Damsel managed to his mind, Who ruins him, and yet seems wondrous kind? One insolent and false, and what is worse, Governs his Heart, and manages his Purse; Makes him whatever she’d have him to believe, Spends his Estate, then learns him how to live? I hope those weighty Considerations will Move ye to keep us altogether still; To treat us equal to our great Desert, And pay your Tributes with a franker Heart; If not, th’ aforesaid Ills will come, and we must part_. NOTES. NOTES ON THE TEXT. ABDELAZER. p. 8 _Dramatis Personae_. I have added ‘Ordonio, a Courtier. A Swain and Shepherds. Courtiers, Guards, Soldiers, Moors, A Nymph and Shepherdesses.’ p. 11, l. 7 _But thousand Eyes throw killing Looks at me_. 4tos--’But thousand Eyes Throw killing Looks at me.’ p, 11, l. 26 _Than to lie fawning_. 4to misprints ‘Then’. p. 12, l. 10 _reveng’d by penitence_. 1724 misprints ‘Patience’. p. 12, l. 33 _Why star’st thou so_? 1724 wrongly ‘Why dar’st thou so?’ p. 13, l. 5 _wou’d they search her here_? 1724 ‘wou’d you search her here?’ p. 13, l. 25 _swounded_. 1724 ‘swooned’. p. 13, l. 33 _more knocking_! [_knocking_. 1724 omits the stage direction. p. 15, l. 4 _Sway’d Destiny as well as they, and took their trade of killing_. 4to--’Sway’d Destiny as well as they, And took their trade of killing.’ p. 15, l. 16 _Pointing to his Sword_. 4to ‘Points.’ p. 15, l. 17 _Scene II. A Room in the Palace_. I have supplied this locale. p. 15, l. 18 _Enter Ferdinand weeping_. 4to ‘Enter Fernando weeping.’ p. 19, ll. 33-4 _Covers a Soul more sanctify’d than this Moorish Robe_. 1724 gives this as one line.