  The text is done, and now for application, And when that's ended, pass your approbation. Though the conspiracy's prevented here, Methinks I see another hatching there; And there's a certain faction fain would sway, If they had strength enough, and damn this play. But this the author bade me boldly say:— If any take his plainness in ill part, He's glad on't from the bottom of his heart; Poets in honour of the truth should write, With the same spirit brave men for it fight; And though against him causeless hatreds rise, And daily where he goes of late, he spies The scowls of sullen and revengeful eyes, 'Tis what he knows with much contempt to bear, And serves a cause too good to let him fear. He fears no poison from an incensed drab, No ruffian's five-foot-sword, nor rascal's stab, Nor any other snares of mischief laid,— Not a Rose-alley cudgel-ambuscade, From any private cause where malice reigns, Or general pique all blockheads have to brains: Nothing shall daunt his pen when truth does call— The rebel tribe, of which that vermin's one, Have now set forward, and their course begun; And while that prince's figure they deface, As they before had massacred his name, Durst their base fears but look him in the face, They'd use his person as they've used his fame: A face in which such lineaments they read Of that great martyr's, whose rich blood they shed, That their rebellious hate they still retain, And in his son would murder him again. With indignation, then, let each brave heart Rouse and unite to take his injured part; Till Royal love and goodness call him home, And songs of triumph meet him as he come; Till Heaven his honour and our peace restore, And villains never wrong his virtue more. FOOTNOTES: |
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