_Sophonisba was play of N. Lee, first acted about_ 1676. _It is in the taste of the French stage, and of the romances of Calprenede and Scuderi. Hannibal and Massinissa are introduced in the character of whining love-sick adorers of relentless beauty. This prevailing taste is admirably ridiculed by Boileau, in a dialogue where a scene is laid in the infernal regions. In the prologue spoken at Oxford, which was always famous for Tory principles, our author ventures to ridicule the Popish Plot, and to predict the consequences of the predominance of fanatical principles to the studies cultivated in the University._ Thespis, the first professor of our art, At country wakes, sung ballads from a cart. To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass, _Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis._ But Æschylus, says Horace in some page, Was the first mountebank that trod the stage: Yet Athens never knew your learned sport, Of tossing poets in a tennis-court[354]. But 'tis the talent of our English nation, Still to be plotting some new reformation; And few years hence, if anarchy goes on, Jack Presbyter shall here erect his throne, Knock out a tub with preaching once a day, And every prayer be longer than a play. Then all your heathen wits shall go to pot, For disbelieving of a Popish-plot; Your poets shall be used like infidels, And worst, the author of the Oxford bells;[355] Nor should we 'scape the sentence, to depart, Even in our first original, a cart; No zealous brother there would want a stone, To maul us cardinals, and pelt pope Joan. Religion, learning, wit, would be supprest, Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast; Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin,[356] must go down, As chief supporters of the triple crown; And Aristotle's for destruction ripe; Some say, he called the soul an organ-pipe, Which, by some little help of derivation, Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 354: Apparently, a tennis-court was the place where the temporary stage was erected at Oxford.] [Footnote 355: Probably some pasquinade against the Whigs, then current in the university.] [Footnote 356: Noted school divines, whose works (the greater was the pity) were then in high esteem in the university.] A PROLOGUE. _This Prologue was obviously spoken in_ 1680-1, _from its frequent reference to the politics of that period: but upon what particular occasion I have not discovered._