To

SOPHONISBA; SPOKEN AT OXFORD,

1680.

Sophonisba was play of N. Lee, first acted about 1676. It is in the taste of the French stage, and of the romances of Calprenede and Scuderi. Hannibal and Massinissa are introduced in the character of whining love-sick adorers of relentless beauty. This prevailing taste is admirably ridiculed by Boileau, in a dialogue where a scene is laid in the infernal regions. In the prologue spoken at Oxford, which was always famous for Tory principles, our author ventures to ridicule the Popish Plot, and to predict the consequences of the predominance of fanatical principles to the studies cultivated in the University.

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 Æschylus, 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 supprest, 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 called the soul an organ-pipe, Which, by some little help of derivation, Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.