Patronages are sufficient to support it, whose Wit and Judgment to defend it, and whose Goodness and Quality to justifie it; such Encouragement wou’d inspire the Poets with new Arts to please, and the Actors with Industry.  ’Twas this that occasion’d so many Admirable Plays heretofore, as Shakespear’s, Fletcher’s_, and Johnson’s, and ’twas this alone that made the Town able to keep so many Play-houses alive, who now cannot supply one.  However, My Lord, I, for my part, will no longer complain, if this Piece find but favour in your Lordship’s Eyes, and that it can be so happy to give your Lordship one hour’s Diversion, which is the only Honour and Fame is wish’d to crown the Endeavours of,

My Lord,
Your Lordship’s
Most Humble, and
Most Obedient
Servant,
A. BEHN.

THE EMPEROR OF THE MOON.

PROLOGUE,

Spoken by Mr. Jevern.

Long, and at vast Expence, th’industrious Stage
Has strove to please a dull ungrateful Age: 
With Heroes and with Gods we first began,
And thunder’d to you in heroick Strain: 
Some dying Love-sick Queen each Night you injoy’d,
And with Magnificence at last were cloy’d: 
Our Drums and Trumpets frighted all the Women;
Our Fighting scar’d the Beaux and Billet-Doux Men. 
So Spark in an Intrigue of Quality,
Grows weary of his splendid Drudgery;
Hates the Fatigue, and cries a Pox upon her,
What a damn’d Bustle’s here with Love and Honour?

In humbler Comedy we next appear,
No Fop or Cuckold, but slap-dash we had him here;
We showed you all, but you malicious grown, |
Friends Vices to expose, and hide your own; |
Cry, damn it--This is such, or such a one. |
Yet nettled, Plague, what does the Scribler mean? 
With his damn’d Characters, and Plot obscene. 
No Woman without Vizard in the Nation
Can see it twice, and keep her reputation—­
That’s certain, Forgetting—­
That he himself, in every gross Lampoon,
Her leuder Secrets spread about the Town;
Whilst their feign’d Niceness is but cautious Fear,
Their own Intrigues should be unravel’d here.

Our next Recourse was dwindling down to Farce,
Then—­Zounds, what Stuff’s here? ’tis all o’er my—­
Well, Gentlemen, since none of these has sped,
Gad, we have bought a Share i’th’ speaking Head. 
So there you’ll save a Sice, |
You love good Husbandry in all but Vice; |
Whoring and drinking only bears a Price. |_

    [The Head rises upon a twisted Post, on a Bench from
    under the Stage.  After Jevern speaks to its Mouth.

Oh!—­Oh!—­Oh!

Stentor. Oh!—­Oh!—­Oh!

[After this it sings Sawny, laughs, crys God bless
the King in order.

Stentor answers.