ABSTRACT
The Prologue goes out, and stays while a tune is played, after which he returns again.
20 And now am sent again to speak the rest. He bows to every great and noble wit, 1 But to the little hectors of the pit r Our poet’s sturdy, and will not submit. J He’ll be beforehand with ’em, and not stay
25 To see each peevish critic stab his play: Each puny censor, who his skill to boast, Is cheaply witty on the poet’s cost. No critic’s verdict should, o f right, stand good, They are excepted all as men of blood:
30 And the same law should shield him from their fury
‘transversing’, which Bayes expounds in The Rehearsal (1672): ‘Sir, my first Rule is the Rule o f Trans version . . . I take a book in my hand, either at home or elsewhere, for that’s all one, if there be any Wit in’t, as there is no book but has some, 1 Transverse it; that is, if it be Prose put it into Verse’ (I i 96-104). 12. o’erseen] mistaken, betrayed into a blunder (OED). 16. doom] verdict. 18. s.d. Normally on the Restoration stage the prologue was followed by the overture which preceded the raising o f the curtain; the audience is therefore surprised by the return o f the Prologue (Price, Musk in the Restoration Theatre 5 5 -6 ) . 22. hectors] swaggering braggarts; Thomas Blount defines hector as ‘a roaring boy that frequents Taverns, and lives chiefly by the reputation o f his sword’ (Glossographia, first included in the 1661 edition). pit] See ‘Prologue to The Rival Ladies' I. 24*1. 24. be beforehand with] anticipate. 26. puny] subordinate (OED 1); raw, inexperienced (OED 3); feeble (OED 4). 29-31. D. is probably referring to the legal rule that people who were convicted o f crimes o f violence against the person were excluded from serv ing on juries (Michael Macnair, privately). See also PO A S ii 285. 29. excepted] objected to, ruled out.
