[Footnote 359: The meaning is, that the poets rebel against sense and criticism, like the parliament, in 1641, against the king; and that the audience judge as ill as those, who, in 1648, condemned Charles to the block. The parallel between the political disputes in 1680, and 1681, and those which preceded the great civil war, was fashionable among the Tories. A Whig author, who undertakes "to answer the clamours of the malicious, and to inform the ignorant on this subject," complains, "It hath been all the clamour of late, _forty-one_, _forty-one_ is now coming to be acted over again; we are running in the very same steps, in the same path and road, to undo the nation, and to ruin kingly government, as our predecessors did in _forty_, _and forty-one_. We run the same courses, we take the same measures; _latet anguis in herba_; beware of the Presbyterian serpent, who lurks in the affairs of _eighty_, being the very same complexion, form, and shape, as that of forty and forty one."--_The Disloyal Forty and Forty-one, and the Loyal Eighty, presented to public view._ Folio 1680.] EPILOGUE SPOKEN AT MITHRIDATES, KING OF PONTUS, THE FIRST PLAY ACTED AT THE THEATRE ROYAL, 1681. _This Epilogue, which occurs in Luttrell's collection with many marginal corrections, seems to have been spoken by Goodman, who is mentioned with great respect by Cibber in his "Apology." It is now for the first time received into Dryden's poems._ Pox on this playhouse! 'tis an old tired jade, 'Twill do no longer, we must force a trade. What if we all turn witnesses o' th' plot?-- That's overstockt, there's nothing to be got. Shall we take orders?--That will parts require, } And colleges give no degrees for hire; } Would Salamanca were a little nigher! } Will nothing do?--O, now 'tis found, I hope; Have not you seen the dancing of the rope? When André's[360] wit was clean run off the score, And Jacob's capering tricks could do no more, A damsel does to the ladder's top advance, And with two heavy buckets drags a dance; The yawning crowd perk up to see the sight, And slaver'd at the mouth for vast delight. Oh, friend, there's nothing, to enchant the mind, Nothing like that sweet sex to draw mankind: The foundered horse, that switching will not stir, Trots to the mare afore, without a spur. Faith, I'll go scour the scene-room, and engage Some toy within to save the falling stage. [_Exit._ _Re-enters with Mrs_ Cox. Who have we here again? what nymph's i' th' stocks? Your most obedient slave, sweet madam Cox. You'd best be coy, and blush for a pretence; For shame! say something in your own defence! _Mrs Cox._ What shall I say? I have been hence so long, I've e'en almost forgot my mother-tongue; If I can act, I wish I were ten fathom Beneath---- _Goodman._ O Lord! pray, no swearing, madam!