THE PROLOGUE TO HIS MAJESTY At the first PLAY presented at the cockpit in WHITEHALL, Being part of that Noble Entertainment which Their majesty's received Novemb. 19 from his Grace the Duke of ALBEMARLE.  
GReatest of Monarchs, welcome to this place  
Which Majesty so oft was wont to grace  
Before our Exile, to divert the Court,  
And balance weighty Cares with harmless sport  
This truth we can to our advantage say,  
They that would have no KING, would have no Play:  
The Laurel and the Crown together went,  
Had the same Foes, and the same Banishment:  
The Ghosts of their great Ancestors they feared,  
Who by the art of conjuring Poets reared,  
Our Harry's & our Edward's long since dead  
Still on the Stage a march of Glory tread:  
Those Monuments of Fame (they thought) would stain  
And teach the People to despise their Reign:  
Nor durst they look into the Muses Well,  
lest the clear Spring their ugliness should tell;  
Affrighted with the shadow of their Rage,  
They broke the Mirror of the times, the Stage;  
The Stage against them still maintained the War,  
When they debauched the Pulpit and the Bar.  
Though to be Hypocrites, be our Praise alone,  
'Tis our peculiar boast that we were none..  
What e'er they taught, we practised what was true,  
And something we had learned of honour too,  
When by Your Danger, and our Duty pressed,  
We acted in the Field, and not in Test;  
Then for the Cause our tiring-house they sacked,  
And silenced us that they alone might act;  
And (to our shame) most dexterously they do it,  
Outact the Players, and out-ly the Poet;  
But all the other Arts appeared so scarce,  
Ours were the Moral Lectures, theirs the farce:  
This spacious Land their theatre became,  
And they Grave Counsellors, and Lords in Name;  
Which these mechanics Personate so ill  
That even the Oppressed with contempt they fill,  
But when the lion's dreadful skin they took,  
They roared so loud that the whole forest shook;  
The noise kept all the neighbourhood in awe,  
Who thought 't was the true lion by his paw.  
If feigned virtue could such Wonders do,  
What may we not expect from this that's true!  
But this Great Theme must serve another Age,  
To fill our Story, and adorn our Stage.   

LONDON, Printed for G. Bedell and T. Collins, at the Middle-Temple Gate in Fleetstreet. 1660.