PROLOGUE

It's thy release I seek, I come to file Those heavy shackles from thy wearied limbs, And give thee leave to uva e the Stage again, As free as virtue: Burn thy withered Baize, And with fresh Laurel crown thy sacred Temples, Cast off thy mask of darkness, and appear As glorious as thy sister Comedy. But first with tears, wash off that guilty sin, Purge out those ill-digested dregs of wit, That use their ink to blot a spotless fame, Let's have no one particular man traduced, But Like a Noble Eagle seize on vice, As she flies bold and open! spare the persons: Let us have simple mirth, and innocent laughter; Sweet-smiling lips, and such as hide no fangs, No venomous biting teeth, or forked tongues, Then shall thy freedom be restored again, And full applause be wages of thy pain. Go then, and you Beadles of hell avant, Return to your eternal plagues. Here, take these purer robes, and clad in these, Be thou all glorious and instruct thy mirth With thy sweet temper, whilst my self entreat Thy friends that long lamented thy sad fates, To fit and taste, and to accept thy Cates. Fit, see, and hear, and censure he that will, I come to have my mirth approved, not skill: Your laughter all I beg, and where you see No jest worth laughing at, faith laugh at me. SEcundum gradum compossibilitatis, & non secundum gradum incompossibilitatis. What should this Scotus mean by his possibilities & incompossibilities? my Cooper, Rider, Thomas, and Minshew are as far to seek as my self: not a word of compossibilitas or incompossibilitas is there. Well, I know what I'll do. I have herd of a great Philosopher: I'll try what he can do; They call him Aristippus, Aristippus, A ristippus: sure a Philosophers name. But they say he lies at the Dolphin, and that me thinks is and ill sign: yet they say too, the best Philosophers of the town never lie from thence: they say it's a Tavern too; for my partly I cannot tell, I know no partly of the Town but the Schools and Aristotles Well: but since I am come thus far, I will inquire: for this same compossibilitas and incompossibilitas sticks in my stomach.