When first our author took this play in hand,
He doubted much, and long was at a stand.
He knew the fame and memory of kings
Were to be treated of as sacred things,
Not as they're represented in this age,
Where they appear the lumber of the stage;
Used only just for reconciling tools,
Or what is worse, made villains all, or fools.
Besides, the characters he shows to-night,
He found were very difficult to write:
He found the fame of France and Spain at stake,
Therefore long paused, and feared which part to take;
Till this his judgment safest understood,
To make them both heroic as he could.
But now the greatest stop was yet unpassed;
He found himself, alas! confined too fast.
He is a man of pleasure, sirs, like you,
And therefore hardly could to business bow;
Till at the last he did this conquest get,
To make his pleasure whetstone to his wit;
So sometimes for variety he writ.
But as those blockheads, who discourse by rote,
Sometimes speak sense, although they rarely know't;
So he scarce knew to what his work would grow,
But 'twas a play, because it would be so:
Yet well he knows this is a weak pretence,
For idleness is the worst want of sense.
Let him not now of carelessness be taxed,
He'll write in earnest, when he writes the next:
Meanwhile,—
Prune his superfluous branches, never spare;
Yet do it kindly, be not too severe:
He may bear better fruit another year.

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