Venice Preserv'd/Epilogue

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;$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$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;$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$And though against him causeless hatreds rise,And dayly where he goes of late, he spiesThe 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] 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,Durst 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 readeOf 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.

1. The Rascal that cut the Duke of Yorke's Picture.