Prologue To "Sophonisba,"

ACTED AT OXFORD, 1680. WRITTEN BY NATHAN LEE. Thespis, the first professor of our art, At country wakes sung ballads from a cart. To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass, "Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis." But 'schylus, says Horace in some page, Was the first mountebank that trod the stage: Yet Athens never knew your learned sport Of tossing poets in a tennis-court. But 'tis the talent of our English nation, Still to be plotting some new reformation: And few years hence, if anarchy goes on, Jack Presbyter shall here erect his throne, Knock out a tub with preaching once a day, And every prayer be longer than a play. Then all your heathen wits shall go to pot, For disbelieving of a Popish plot: Your poets shall be used like infidels, And worst, the author of the Oxford bells: Nor should we 'scape the sentence, to depart, Even in our first original, a cart. No zealous brother there would want a stone To maul us cardinals, and pelt Pope Joan: Religion, learning, wit, would be suppress'd-- Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast: Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down, As chief supporters of the triple crown; And Aristotle's for destruction ripe; Some say he call'd the soul an organ-pipe, Which by some little help of derivation, Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.