censure, as turning back to my promise; I desire the learned
and charitable critic, to have so much faith in me, to think
it was done of industry: for, with what ease I could have
varied it nearer his scale (but that I fear to boast my own
faculty) I could here insert. But my special aim being to put
the snaffle in their mouths, that cry out, We never punish
vice in our interludes, etc., I took the more liberty; though
not without some lines of example, drawn even in the ancients
themselves, the goings out of whose comedies are not always
joyful, but oft times the bawds, the servants, the rivals,
yea, and the masters are mulcted; and fitly, it being the
office of a comic poet to imitate justice, and instruct to
life, as well as purity of language, or stir up gentle
affections; to which I shall take the occasion elsewhere to
speak.

For the present, most reverenced Sisters, as I have cared to
be thankful for your affections past, and here made the
understanding acquainted with some ground of your favours; let
me not despair their continuance, to the maturing of some
worthier fruits; wherein, if my muses be true to me, I shall
raise the despised head of poetry again, and stripping her out
of those rotten and base rags wherewith the times have
adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit,
feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be embraced and
kist of all the great and master-spirits of our world. As for
the vile and slothful, who never affected an act worthy of
celebration, or are so inward with their own vicious natures,
as they worthily fear her, and think it an high point of
policy to keep her in contempt, with their declamatory and