Nor (z) Amalek can rout the chosen bands,
While Hur and Aaron hold up Moses' hands.
By living well, let us secure his days,
Mod'rate in hopes, and humble in our ways.
No force the freeborn spirit can constrain,
But charity and great examples gain.
Forgiveness is our thanks for such a day,
"T is godlike God in his own coin to pay.
But you, propitious queen, translated
here,

From your mild heav'n, to rule our rugged sphere,

Beyond the sunny walks, and circling year:

301

310

You, who your native climate have bereft
Of all the virtues, and the vices left;
Whom piety and beauty make their boast,
Tho' beautiful is well in pious lost;
So lost, as starlight is dissolv'd away,
And melts into the brightness of the day;
Or gold about the regal diadem,
Lost to improve the luster of the gem:
What can we add to your triumphant
day?

Let the great gift the beauteous giver pay.
For, should our thanks awake the rising

Whom they pretend, at least, to imitate,
Is equal both to punish and reward;
For few would love their God, unless they
fear'd.

350

Resistless force and immortality Make but a lame, imperfect deity; Tempests have force unbounded to destroy, And deathless being ev'n the damn'd enjoy; And yet Heav'n's attributes, both last and first,

One without life, and one with life accurst; But justice is Heav'n's self, so strictly he, That, could it fail, the Godhead could not be. This virtue is your own; but life and state Are one to fortune subject, one to fate: Equal to all, you justly frown or smile; Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile;

360 Yourself our balance hold, the world's, our isle.

66

The epilogue is closely connected with the play. The amour of Antonio, a young, noble, amorous Portuguese," and the Mufti's daughter Morayma, who steals her father's jewel casket for her lover's sake, furnishes the secondary, comic intrigue of the drama, of which the love of Sebastian and Almeyda, a captive queen of Barbary," later discovered to be Sebastian's sister, is the main plot. The true relation of Sebastian and Almeyda is disclosed by "an old counselor," Alvarez. The rest may be understood from hints in the epilogue itself.]

66

Suppose our poet was your foe before,
Yet now, the bus'ness of the field is o'er;
'Tis time to let your civil wars alone,
When troops are into winter quarters gone.
Jove was alike to Latian and to Phrygian;
And you well know, a play 's of no religion.
Take good advice, and please yourselves
this day

No matter from what hands you have the play.

Among good fellows ev'ry health will pass, That serves to carry round another glass: When with full bowls of Burgundy you)

dine,

21

Tho' at the mighty monarch you repine, You grant him still Most Christian in his wine.

Thus far the poet; but his brains grow addle,

And all the rest is purely from this noddle.

You've seen young ladies at the senate door

Prefer petitions, and your grace implore:
However grave the legislators were,
Their cause went ne'er the worse for being
fair.

Reasons as weak as theirs, perhaps, I

bring;

30

But I could bribe you with as good a thing. I heard him make advances of good nature;

That he, for once, would sheathe his cutting satire.

Sign but his peace, he vows he'll ne'er again

The sacred names of fops and beaus profane.

Strike up the bargain quickly; for I swear, As times go now, he offers very fair.

Be not too hard on him with statutes neither;

Be kind; and do not set your teeth together,

To stretch the laws, as cobblers do their leather.

40

and with music by Purcell (see Downes). The date is fixed with some accuracy by the references to King William's campaign in Ireland, from June 4 to September 6, 1690, during which time Queen Mary acted as regent. The prologue gave offense by its political references; and, as Cibber tells us in his Apology, I was forbid by the Lord Dorset after the first day of its being spoken." "It must be confessed," Cibber adds, "that this prologue had some familiar, metaphorical sneers at the Revolution itself; and as the poetry of it was good, the offense of it was less pardonable."

This prologue was not printed with The Prophetess on its publication in 1690; it first appeared in the second edition, 1708, of The Annual Miscellany for the Year 1694 (the Fourth Miscellany).]

WHAT Nostradame, with all his art, can guess

The fate of our approaching Prophetess?
A play, which, like a prospective set right,
Presents our vast expenses close to sight;
But turn the tube, and there we sadly view
Our distant gains; and those uncertain too:
A sweeping tax, which on ourselves we
raise,

To box, like boys, with one hand tied behind him?

This is plain leveling of wit, in which The poor has all th' advantage, not the rich.

The blockhead stands excus'd for wanting sense,

And wits turn blockheads in their own defense.

Yet, tho' the stage's traffic is undone,
Still Julian's interloping trade goes on:
Tho' satire on the theater you smother,
Yet, in lampoons, you libel one another.
The first produces still a second jig;
You whip 'em out, like schoolboys, till
they gig,

20

And with the same success, we readers

Beauty for valor's best reward he chose; Peace, after war; and after toil, repose. Hence, ye profane, excluded from our sights;

And, charm'd by day with honor's vain delights,

Go, make your best of solitary nights.
Recant betimes, 't is prudence to submit; 40
Our sex is still your overmatch in wit:
We never fail with new, successful arts,
To make fine fools of you, and all your
parts.

EPILOGUE

SPOKEN BY PHÆDRA, MRS. MOUNTFORT

I'm thinking (and it almost makes me mad) How sweet a time those heathen ladies had. Idolatry was ev'n their gods' own trade; They worship'd the fine creatures they had made.

Cupid was chief of all the deities,

And love was all the fashion in the skies. When the sweet nymph held up the lily hand,

Jove was her humble servant at command.
The treasury of heav'n was ne'er so bare,
But still there was a pension for the fair. 10
In all his reign adult'ry was no sin,
For Jove the good example did begin.
Mark, too, when he usurp'd the husband's

But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye:
She's fickle and false, and there we agree,
For I am as false and as fickle as she.
We neither believe what either can say;
And, neither believing, we neither betray.

II

'Tis civil to swear, and say things of course;
We mean not the taking for better for worse.
When present, we love; when absent, agree:
I think not of Iris, nor Iris of me.
The legend of love no couple can find,
So easy to part, or so equally join'd.

10