I the Plain Dealer am to act to-day, And my rough part begins before the play. First, you who scribble, yet hate all that write, And keep each other company in spite, As rivals in your common mistress, fame, And with faint praises one another damn; 'Tis a good play, we know, you can't forgive, But grudge yourselves the pleasure you receive: Our scribbler therefore bluntly bid me say, He would not have the wits pleased here to-day Next, you, the fine, loud gentlemen o' th' pit, Who damn all plays, yet, if y'ave any wit, 'Tis but what here you spunge and daily get; Poets, like friends to whom you are in debt, You hate; and so rooks laugh, to see undone Those pushing gamesters whom they live upon. Well, you are sparks, and still will be i' th' fashion; Rail then at plays, to hide your obligation. Now, you shrewd judges, who the boxes sway, Leading the ladies' hearts and sense astray, And, for their sakes, see all, and hear no play; Correct your cravats, foretops, lock behind: The dress and breeding of the play ne'er mind; Plain dealing is, you'll say, quite out of fashion; You'll hate it here, as in a dedication: And your fair neighbours, in a limning poet No more than in a painter will allow it. Pictures too like the ladies will not please; They must be drawn too here like goddesses. You, as at Lely's too, would truncheon wield, And look like heroes in a painted field. But the coarse dauber of the coming scenes To follow life and nature only means, Displays you as you are, makes his fine woman A mercenary jilt, and true to no man: His men of wit and pleasure of the age Are as dull rogues as ever cumber'd stage: He draws a friend only to custom just, And makes him naturally break his trust. I, only, act a part like none of you, And yet you'll say, it is a fool's part too: An honest man who, like you, never winks At faults; but, unlike you, speaks what he thinks: The only fool who ne'er found patron yet, For truth is now a fault as well as wit. And where else, but on stages, do we see Truth pleasing, or rewarded honesty? Which our bold poet does this day in me. If not to th' honest, be to th' prosperous kind, Some friends at court let the Plain Dealer find. _DRAMATIS PERSONÆ._ MANLY, of an honest, surly, nice humour, supposed first, in the time of the Dutch war, to have procured the command of a ship, out of honour, not interest; and choosing a sea-life only to avoid the world. FREEMAN, MANLY'S Lieutenant, a gentleman well educated, but of a broken fortune, a complier with the age. VERNISH, MANLY'S bosom and only friend. NOVEL, a pert railing Coxcomb, and an admirer of novelties, makes love to OLIVIA. Major OLDFOX, an old impertinent Fop, given to scribbling, makes love to the Widow BLACKACRE. Lord PLAUSIBLE, a ceremonious, supple, commending Coxcomb, in love with OLIVIA.