f all your goodness leaves to our dispose,
Our liberty's the only gift we chuse:
Absence alone can make our sorrows less;
And not to see what we can ne'er redress.
_Guy_. Northward, beyond the mountains, we will go,
Where rocks lie covered with eternal snow,
Thin herbage in the plains and fruitless fields,
The sand no gold, the mine no silver yields:
There love and freedom we'll in peace enjoy;
No Spaniards will that colony destroy.
We to ourselves will all our wishes grant;
And, nothing coveting, can nothing want.
_Cort_. First your great father's funeral pomp provide:
That done, in peace your generous exiles guide;
While I loud thanks pay to the powers above,
Thus doubly blest, with conquest, and with love.
[_Exeunt_.
EPILOGUE
BY A MERCURY.
To all and singular in this full meeting,
Ladies and gallants, Phoebus sends ye greeting.
To all his sons, by whate'er title known,
Whether of court, or coffee-house, or town;
From his most mighty sons, whose confidence
Is placed in lofty sound, and humble sense,
Even to his little infants of the time,
Who write new songs, and trust in tune and rhyme:
Be't known, that Phoebus (being daily grieved
To see good plays condemned, and bad received)
Ordains, your judgment upon every cause,
Henceforth, be limited by wholesome laws.
He first thinks fit no sonnetteer advance
His censure, farther than the song or dance.
Your wit burlesque may one step higher climb,
And in his sphere may judge all doggrel rhyme:
All proves, and moves, and loves, and honours too;
All that appears high sense, and scarce is low.
As for the coffee-wits, he says not much;
Their proper business is to damn the Dutch:
For the great dons of wit--
Phoebus gives them full privilege alone,
To damn all others, and cry up their own.
Last, for the ladies, 'tis Apollo's will,
They should have power to save, but not to kill:
For love and he long since have thought it fit,
Wit live by beauty, beauty reign by wit.
SECRET LOVE;
OR, THE
MAIDEN QUEEN.
_Vitiis nemo sine nascitur; optimus ille
Qui minimis urgetur_. HORAT.
THE MAIDEN QUEEN
The Maiden Queen is said, by Langbaine, to be founded upon certain
passages in "The Grand Cyrus," and in "Ibrahim, the illustrious
Bassa." Few readers will probably take the trouble of consulting
these huge volumes, for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of
this charge. Even our duty, as editors, cannot impel us to the task;
satisfi
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