The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II | Page 5

from the last lines of the second epilogue:
Would you but change, for serious plot and verse, This motley garniture of fool and farce; Nor scorn a mode, because 'tis taught at home, Which dues, like vests,[A] our gravity become; Our poet yields you should this play refuse, As tradesmen by the change of fashions lose, With some content, their fripperies of France, In hope it may their staple trade advance.
[Footnote A: This seems to allude to the Polish dress, which, upon his restoration, Charles wished to introduce into Britain. It was not altered for the French, till his intimacy with that court was cemented by pecuniary dependence.]
In the prologue, the author indulges himself in a display of the terms of astrology, of which vain science he was a believer and a student.

PREFACE.
It would be a great impudence in me to say much of a comedy, which has had but indifferent success in the action. I made the town my judges, and the greater part condemned it: after which, I do not think it my concernment to defend it with the ordinary zeal of a poet for his decried poem. Though Corneille is more resolute in his preface before his _Pertharite_[A], which was condemned more universally than this; for he avows boldly, that, in spite of censure, his play was well and regularly written; which is more than I dare say for mine. Yet it was received at court; and was more than once the divertisement of his Majesty, by his own command; but I have more modesty than to ascribe that to my merit, which was his particular act of grace. It was the first attempt I made in dramatic poetry; and, I find since, a very bold one, to begin with comedy, which is the most difficult part of it. The plot was not originally my own; but so altered by me, (whether for the better or worse I know not) that whoever the author was, he could not have challenged a scene of it. I doubt not but you will see in it the uncorrectness of a young writer; which is yet but a small excuse for him, who is so little amended since. The best apology I can make for it, and the truest, is only this, that you have, since that time, received with applause, as bad, and as uncorrect plays from other men.
[Footnote A: "Le succés de cette tragédie à été si malheureux, que pour m'epargner le chagrin de m'en souvenir, je n'en dirai presque rien.--J'ajoute ici malgré sa disgrace, que les sentimens en sont assez vifs et nobles, les vers assez bien tournes, et que la fa?on dont le sujet s'explique dans la première scène ne manque pas d'artifice."
Examen de Pertharite.]

PROLOGUE,
WHEN IT WAS FIRST ACTED.
Is it not strange to hear a poet say, He comes to ask you, how you like the play? You have not seen it yet: alas! 'tis true; But now your love and hatred judge, not you: And cruel factions (bribed by interest) come, Not to weigh merit, but to give their doom. Our poet, therefore, jealous of th' event, And (though much boldness takes) not confident, Has sent me, whither you, fair ladies, too, Sometimes upon as small occasions, go; And, from this scheme, drawn for the hour and day, Bid me enquire the fortune of his play.
_The curtain drawn discovers two Astrologers; the prologue is presented to them_.
_1 Astrol. reads_, A figure of the heavenly bodies in their several Apartments, Feb. the 5th, half-an-hour after three afternoon, from whence you are to judge the success of a new play, called the Wild Gallant.
_2 Astrol_. Who must judge of it, we, or these gentlemen? We'll not meddle with it, so tell your poet. Here are, in this house, the ablest mathematicians in Europe for his purpose.
They will resolve the question, ere they part. _1 Att_. Yet let us judge it by the rules of art; First Jupiter, the ascendant's lord disgraced, In the twelfth house, and near grim Saturn placed, Denote short life unto the play:-- _2 Ast_. --Jove yet, In his apartment Sagittary, set Under his own root, cannot take much wrong. _1 Ast_. Why then the life's not very short, nor long; _2 Ast_. The luck not very good, nor very ill; Prole. That is to say, 'tis as 'tis taken still. _1 Ast_. But, brother, Ptolemy the learned says, 'Tis the fifth house from whence we judge of plays. Venus, the lady of that house, I find Is Peregrine; your play is ill-designed; It should have been but one continued song, Or, at the least, a dance of three hours long. Ast. But yet the greatest mischief does remain, The twelfth apartment bears the lords of Spain; Whence I conclude, it is your author's lot, To