PROLOGUE, To the revived Comedy called EASTWARD HOE. Spoken by MR. KING. November 9, 1775

In Charles the Second's gay and wanton days, When lords had wit and gentlemen wrote plays, A rural 'squire was term'd a country Put, And the grave City was a standing butt. To town, like oxen, honest knights were led, To shew in droves, huge antlers on their head. Gallants in quest of game, cried Eastward Hoe! And oft sprung Puss within the sound of Bow; While ev'ry 'prentice in the galleries chuckled At London Alderman dubb'd London Cuckold.

But now the times are chang'd, and chang'd the jest; For Horns, some say, sprout nobly in the West. The murrain 'mongst horn'd cattle spreads so far, It rages on each side of Temple-bar. The modish citizen o'erleaps his ward, And the gay Cit plants Horns upon My Lord; While Beaux, whose wives of flattery chew the cud, Are dupes full-blown, or Cuckolds in the bud.

Artists, who furnish'd pictures for the stage, In good Queen Bess memorable age, With a just pencil City-portraits drew, Mark'd ev'ry vice, and mark'd each virtue too: The City Madam's vanities display'd, Prais'd honest gains, but damn'd the tricks of trade. Artists like these, (Old Ben the chief) to-night Bring Idleness and Industry to light. Their Sketch, by Time perhaps impair'd too much, A female hand has ventur'd to retouch. Hence too our Hogarth drew, nor scorn'd to glean The Comick stubble of the Moral Scene; Hence Fellow-Prentices he brought to life, And shew'd their manners, and their fate, at strife; Shew'd to what ends both Good and Evil stretch— To Honour one, and t'other to Jack Ketch; Turn'd ridicule 'gainst folly, fraud, and pride, And sought with Humour's lance on Virtue's side.

Such be henceforth each Comick Artist's aim, Poets, or Painters, be their drift the same! Such are the lessons which To-Night we read; And may next sessions prove that we succeed!