with seeming innocence:
That crafty kind with daylight can dispense.
Still we are throng'd so full with Reynard's race,
That loyal subjects scarce can find a place:
Thus modest truth is cast behind the crowd:
Truth speaks too low: hypocrisy too loud.
Let them be first to flatter in success;
Duty can stay, but guilt has need to press.
Once, when true zeal the sons of God did call, 20
To make their solemn show at heaven's Whitehall,
The fawning Devil appear'd among the rest,
And made as good a courtier as the best.
The friends of Job, who rail'd at him before,
Came, cap in hand, when he had three times more.
Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true;
Kings can forgive, if rebels can but sue:
A tyrant's power in rigour is express'd;
The father yearns in the true prince's breast.
We grant, an o'ergrown Whig no grace can mend; 30
But most are babes, that know not they offend.
The crowd, to restless motion still inclined,
Are clouds, that tack according to the wind.
Driven by their chiefs, they storms of hailstones pour;
Then mourn, and soften to a silent shower.
O welcome to this much-offending land,
The prince that brings forgiveness in his hand!
Thus angels on glad messages appear:
Their first salute commands us not to fear.
Thus Heaven, that could constrain us to obey, 40
(With reverence if we might presume to say)
Seems to relax the rights of sovereign sway:
Permits to man the choice of good and ill,
And makes us happy by our own free will.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 58: 'Prologue:' spoken when the Duke of York returned from
Scotland in triumph. He went to the theatre in Dorset Gardens, when this
was uttered as the Prologue to "Venice Preserved."]

* * * * *

XXX.

PROLOGUE TO "THE EARL OF ESSEX; OR, THE UNHAPPY FAVOURITE;"

BY MR J. BANKS, 1682.

SPOKEN TO THE KING AND QUEEN AT THEIR COMING TO THE HOUSE.

When first the ark was landed on the shore,
And Heaven had vow'd to curse the ground no more;
When tops of hills the longing patriarch saw,
And the new scene of earth began to draw;
The dove was sent to view the waves' decrease,
And first brought back to man the pledge of peace.
'Tis needless to apply, when those appear,
Who bring the olive, and who plant it here.
We have before