THE
Old DEBAUCHEES.
 
A
COMEDY.
 
As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal
in Drury-Lane.
By His MAJESTY's Servants.
By the Author of the Modern Husband.
LONDON:
Printed for J. W. And Sold by J. Roberts in
Warwick-Lane, MDCCXXXII.
[Price One Shilling.]
PROLOGUE.
Spoken by Mr. William Mills.
I Wish, with all my Heart, the Stage and Town
Would both agree to cry all Prologues down;
That we, no more oblig'd to say or sing,
Might drop this useless necessary Thing:
No more with aukward Strut, before the Curtain,
Chaunt out some Rhimes—there's neither good nor hurt in.
 
 
What is this Stuff the Poets make us deal in, 
But some old worn-out Jokes of their Retailing: 
From Sages of our own, or former Times, 
Transvers'd from Prose, perhaps transpros'd from Rhimes. 
 
How long the Tragick Muse her Station kept,⎫
How Guilt was humbl'd, and how Tyrants wept,⎬
Forgetting still how often Hearers slept.⎭
 
Perhaps, for Change, you, now and then, by Fits, 
Are told that Criticks are the Bane of Wits; 
How they turn Vampyres, being dead and damn'd, 
And with the Blood of living Bards are cramm'd: 
That Poets thus tormented die, and then 
The Devil gets in them, and they suck agen. 
 
Thus modern Bards, like Bays, their Prologues frame,⎫
For this, and that, and every Play the same,⎬
Which you, most justly, neither praise nor blame.⎭
 
As something must be spoke, no matter what; 
No Friends are now by Prologues lost or got; 
By such Harangues we raise nor Spleen, nor Pity— 
Thus ends this idle, but important Ditty.
Dramatis Personæ.
 
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