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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.