Chapter XXIV: Prologue

In these distracted times, when each man dreads
The bloody stratagems of busy heads;
When we have feared, three years, we know not what,
Till witnesses[62] begin to die o' the rot,
What made our poet meddle with a plot?
Was't that he fancied, for the very sake
And name of plot, his trifling play might take?
For there's not in't one inch-board evidence,
But 'tis, he says, to reason plain, and sense,
And that he thinks a plausible defence.
Were truth by sense and reason to be tried,
Sure all our swearers might be laid aside:
No, of such tools our author has no need,
To make his plot, or make his play succeed;
He of black bills has no prodigious tales,
Or Spanish pilgrims cast ashore in Wales;
Here's not one murdered magistrate at least,
Kept rank, like venison for a city feast;
Grown four days stiff, the better to prepare
And fit his pliant limbs to ride in chair:
Yet here's an army raised, though under ground,
But no man seen, nor one commission found;
Here is a traitor too that's very old,
Turbulent, subtle, mischievous, and bold;
Bloody, revengeful, and, to crown his part,
Loves fumbling with a wench with all his heart;
Till after having many changes past,
In spite of age (thanks Heaven) is hanged at last.
Next is a senator that keeps a whore,
In Venice none a higher office bore;
To lewdness every night the lecher ran:
Show me, all London, such another man,
Match him at Mother Creswold's[63] if you can.
O Poland, Poland! had it been thy lot,
T'have heard in time of this Venetian plot,
Thou surely chosen hadst one king from thence,
And honoured them, as thou hast England since.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] _i.e._ Titus Oates and others. The prologue is full of allusions to events of the time.

[63] The well-known Mother Creswell, a notorious procuress, who kept up an extensive correspondence with spies and emissaries, by whom she was informed of "the rising beauties in different parts of the kingdom."

_DRAMATIS PERSONÆ._]

Duke of VENICE.
PRIULI, Father of Belvidera, a Senator.
ANTONIO, a fine speaker in the Senate.
BEDAMAR, the Spanish Ambassador.
JAFFIER, }
PIERRE, }
RENAULT, }
SPINOSA, }
THEODORE, }
ELIOT, }
REVILLIDO, } Conspirators.
DURAND, }
MEZZANA, }
BRAINVILLE, }
TERNON, }
RETROSI, }
BRABE, }
BELVIDERA.
AQUILINA, a Greek Courtesan.
Two Women, Attendants on Belvidera.
Two Women, Servants to Aquilina.
The Council of Ten.
Officer, Guard, Friar, Executioner, and Rabble.

SCENE--VENICE.

_VENICE PRESERVED_;

_OR_,

_A PLOT DISCOVERED._