So shipwrecked passengers escaped to land, So look they, when on the bare beach they stand, Dropping and cold, and their first fear scarce o'er, Expecting famine on a desart shore. From that hard climate we must wait for bread, Whence even the natives, forced by hunger, fled. Our stage does human chance present to view, But ne'er before was seen so sadly true: You are changed too, and your pretence to see Is but a nobler name for charity. Your own provisions furnish out our feasts, While you, the founders, make yourselves the guests. Of all mankind beside, fate had some care, } But for poor Wit no portion did prepare, } 'Tis left a rent-charge to the brave and fair.} You cherished it, and now its fall you mourn, Which blind unmannered zealots make their scorn, Who think that fire a judgment on the stage, Which spared not temples[332] in its furious rage. But as our new-built city rises higher, } So from old theatres may new aspire, } Since fate contrives magnificence by fire.} Our great metropolis does far surpass Whate'er is now, and equals all that was: Our wit as far does foreign wit excel, And, like a king, should in a palace dwell. But we with golden hopes are vainly fed, Talk high, and entertain you in a shed: Your presence here, for which we humbly sue, Will grace old theatres, and build up new. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 332: St Paul's, and other churches, were consumed in the great fire, then a recent event.] PROLOGUE FOR THE WOMEN, WHEN THEY ACTED AT THE OLD THEATRE, LINCOLN'S-INN-FIELDS. _Female performers were first introduced after the Restoration. They became speedily acceptable to the court and the public. The dramatic poets were in so many ways indebted to them, that occasional exertions, dedicated to their benefit, as I presume the following to have been, were but a suitable return for various favours received. Our author's intimacy with the beautiful Mrs Reeves particularly called forth his talents in behalf of these damsels, distressed as they must have been by the unlucky burning of the theatre in Drury-Lane. The Prologue occurs in the Miscellanies; but is, I know not why, omitted by Derrick in his edition of Dryden's poems._