Venice preserv'd, or, A plot discover'd a tragedy as it is acted at the Duke's Theatre / written by Thomas Otway.

EPILOGUE,

THE Text is done, and now for Application, And when that's ended pass your Approbation. Though the Conspiracy's prevented here, Methinks I see another hatching there; And there's a certain Faction fain would sway, If they had strength enough and damn this Play, But this the Author bad me boldly say: If any take his plainness in ill part, He's glad on't from the bottome of his heart; Poets in honour of the Truth shou'd write, With the same Spirit brave men for it fight; And though against him causeless hatreds rise, And dayly where he goes of late, he spies The scowles of sullen and revengefull eyes; Tis what he knows with much contempt to bear, And serves a cause too good to let him fear: He fears no poison from an incens'd Drabb, No Ruffian's five-foot-sword, nor Rascal's stab; Nor any other snares of mischief laid, Not a Rose-alley Cudgel-Ambuscade, From any private cause where malice reigns, Or general Pique all Block-heads have to brains: Nothing shall daunt his Pen when Truth does call, No not the* 1.1 Picture-mangler at Guild-hall. The Rebel-Tribe, of which that Vermin's one, Have now set forward and their course begun; And while that Prince's figure they deface, As they before had massacred his Name, D••rst their base fears but look him in the face, They'd use his Person as they've us'd his Fame;

A face, in which such lineaments they reade Of that great Martyr's, whose rich bloud they shed, That their rebellious hate they still retain, And in his Son would murther Him again: With indignation then, let each brave heart, Rouse and unite to take his injur'd part; Till Royal Love and Goodness call him home, And Songs of Triumph meet him as he come; Till Heaven his Honour and our Peace restore, And Villains never wrong his Vertue more.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The Rascal that out the Duke of York's Picture.