I grieve not now that old_ Menanders _veine
Is ruin'd to survive in thee againe;
Such in his time was he of the same peece,
The smooth, even naturall Wit, and Love of Greece.
Those few sententious fragments shew more worth,
Then all the Poets_ Athens _ere brought forth;
And I am sorry we have lost those houres
On them, whose quicknesse comes far short of ours,
And dwell not more on thee, whose every Page
May be a patterne for their Scene and Stage.
I will not yeeld thy Workes so meane a Prayse;
More pure, more chaste, more sainted then are Playes,
Nor with that dull supinenesse to be read,
To passe a fire, or laugh an houre in bed.
How doe the Muses suffer every where,
Taken in such mouthes censure, in such eares,
That twixt a whiffe, a Line or two rehearse,
And with their Rheume together spaule a Verse?
This all a Poems leisure after Play,
Drinke or Tabacco, it may keep the Day.
Whilst even their very idlenesse they thinke
Is lost in these, that lose their time in drinkt._
_Pity then dull we, we that better know,
Will a more serious houre on thee bestow,
Why should not_ Beaumont _in the Morning please,
As well as_ Plautus, Aristophanes?
_Who if my Pen may as my thoughts be free,
Were scurrill Wits and Buffons both to Thee;
Yet these our Learned of severest brow
Will deigne to looke on, and to note them too,
That will defie our owne, tis English stuffe,
And th' Author is not rotten long enough.
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