EPILOGUE.

Since you at land no more can hurried be,
The shifted scene shall turn us now to sea,
Where our small bark does strike, when we'd espy
You're the Admiral, with your main-top high.
Our Pilot-Poet should his laurel vail,-
Which is his flag,-as low as we our sail.
To shew you things yet newer, we did mean
To represent a mermaid in that scene;
Not proudly combing, with a comb of gold,
Her long wet hair, till the vain wretch takes cold,-
For so she's painted by each bungling rogue,-
But in her hand an humble Epilogue; *

Which she by signs-for Mermaids seldom speak-
Should recommend to critics on the deck:
And, by a court'sy, should a plaudit beg;-
Note, female fishes never make a leg.
But that's an observation by the by,-
And now, methinks, I hear some ask me why
That observation's made? Our author says
'Tis just like those which critics make at Plays.
He said he wish't for our sakes, not his own,-
Yet that's a charity but rarely known-

* It would seem that it was very common to hang out the picture of a fish, real or imaginary, at ordinaries. Thus in Mayne's City Match, 1639.

Roseclap" (The keeper of an Ordinary.) "Faith, I do grant
This is the strangest fish. Yon' I have hung

His other picture in the fields, where some
Say 'tis an o'ergrown porpoise; others say,
'Tis the fish caught in Cheshire; one to whom
The rest agree, said "'twas a mermaid."

In the same play, Timothy, a merchant's son, while in a state of inebriety and asleep, is exhibited by his companions, by way of fun, as 'a strange fish," and the spectators pay for admission.

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Such audiences as learning do forbear;
I mean, who never strive to shew it here.
This landscape of the sea,-but by the way-
That's an expression which might hurt our play,
If the severer critics were in town;

This prospect of the sea cannot be shewn:
Therefore be pleas'd to think that you are all
Behind the Row, which men call Portugal;
The title at our doors was that which drew
You hither by the charm of being new.
You'll spoil the jest, unless the Play succeed.
For then we may e'en let our House indeed.

NEWS FROM PLYMOUTH.

News from Plymouth. Folio, 1673.

THIS is one of the six plays printed for the first time, in the folio edition of Sir William Davenant's Works, 1673. It was one of his earlier productions, having been licensed by Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, 1st August 1635, and, in all probability, performed shortly afterwards. There is no record, however, existing of such performance. Geneste remarks that "this is far from a bad comedy, but there is little or no plot. Of this defect" he further, although deducing from false premises, remarks,—“ Davenant was sensible,—he says in the Prologue,

'We could not raise

From a few seamen, wind-bound in a port,
More various changes, business, or more sport.'

"It is clear," he goes on to observe, "that Davenant had originally laid the scene at Portsmouth, as the widow Carrack, towards the close of the first act, characterises her house as the best in Portsmouth. From certain expressions in the Prologue and Epilogue, it was highly probable that this play came out at the Globe; but the matter is put past a doubt by Davenant's poems, in which the Epilogue is printed, a second time, as the Epilogue to a vacation play at the Globe-the name of the play is not mentioned."