  In these distracted times, when each man dreads The bloody stratagems of busy heads; When we have feared, three years, we know not what, Till witnesses What made our poet meddle with a plot? Was't that he fancied, for the very sake And name of plot, his trifling play might take? For there's not in't one inch-board evidence, But 'tis, he says, to reason plain, and sense, And that he thinks a plausible defence. Were truth by sense and reason to be tried, Sure all our swearers might be laid aside: No, of such tools our author has no need, To make his plot, or make his play succeed; He of black bills has no prodigious tales, Or Spanish pilgrims cast ashore in Wales; Here's not one murdered magistrate at least, Kept rank, like venison for a city feast; Grown four days stiff, the better to prepare And fit his pliant limbs to ride in chair: Yet here's an army raised, though under ground, But no man seen, nor one commission found; Here is a traitor too that's very old, Turbulent, subtle, mischievous, and bold; Bloody, revengeful, and, to crown his part, Loves fumbling with a wench with all his heart; Till after having many changes past, In spite of age (thanks Heaven) is hanged at last. Next is a senator that keeps a whore, In Venice none a higher office bore; To lewdness every night the lecher ran: Show me, all London, such another man, Match him at Mother Creswold's O Poland, Poland! had it been thy lot, T'have heard in time of this Venetian plot, Thou surely chosen hadst one king from thence, And honoured them, as thou hast England since. FOOTNOTES: |
|
