Prologue--Spoken by Mr. Betterton.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

Of those few fools, who with ill stars are curst,
Sure
scribbling fools, called poets, fare the worst:
For they're a
sort of fools which fortune makes,
And, after she has made 'em
fools, forsakes.
With Nature's oafs 'tis quite a diff'rent
case,
For Fortune favours all her idiot race.
In her own nest
the cuckoo eggs we find,
O'er which she broods to hatch the
changeling kind:
No portion for her own she has to spare,
So
much she dotes on her adopted care.

Poets are bubbles, by the town drawn in,
Suffered at first
some trifling stakes to win:
But what unequal hazards do they
run!
Each time they write they venture all they've won:
The
Squire that's buttered still, is sure to be undone.
This author,
heretofore, has found your favour,
But pleads no merit from his
past behaviour.
To build on that might prove a vain
presumption,
Should grants to poets made admit resumption,

And in Parnassus he must lose his seat,
If that be found a
forfeited estate.

He owns, with toil he wrought the following scenes,
But if
they're naught ne'er spare him for his pains:
Damn him the more;
have no commiseration
For dulness on mature deliberation.
He
swears he'll not resent one hissed-off scene,
Nor, like those
peevish wits, his play maintain,
Who, to assert their sense, your
taste arraign.
Some plot we think he has, and some new
thought;
Some humour too, no farce--but that's a fault.

Satire, he thinks, you ought not to expect;
For so reformed a
town who dares correct?
To please, this time, has been his sole
pretence,
He'll not instruct, lest it should give offence.

Should he by chance a knave or fool expose,
That hurts none here,
sure here are none of those.
In short, our play shall (with your
leave to show it)
Give you one instance of a passive poet,

Who to your judgments yields all resignation:
So save or damn,
after your own discretion.