The Prologue at Oxford, 1680

Thespis, the first Professor of our Art,

At Country Wakes, Sung Ballads in a Cart.

To prove this true, if Latin be no Trespass,

Dicitur et Plaustris vexisse Poemata Thespis.

But Eschylus, says Horace in some Page,

Was the first Mountebank e’er 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 go on,

Jack Presbyter will here erect his Throne,

Knock out a Tub with Preaching once a Day.

And every Prayer be longer than a Play.

Then all you Heathen Wits shall go to pot

For disbelieving of a Popish plot:

Nor should we want the Sentence to depart

Ev’n in our first Original, a Cart.

Occham, Dun Scotus, must though learn’d go down,

As chief Supporters of the Triple Crown.

And Aristotle for destruction ripe:

Some say he call’d the Soul an Organ-pipe,

Which, by some little help of Derivation,

Shall thence be call’d a Pipe of Inspiration.

Your wiser Judgments further penetrate

Who late found out one Tare amongst the Wheat,

This is our Comfort: none e’er cried us down

But who disturb’d both Bishop and a Crown.