filth of the time is uttered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such
plenty of solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so racked
metaphors, with brothelry, able to violate the ear of a pagan, and
blasphemy, to turn the blood of a Christian to water. I cannot but be
serious in a cause of this nature, wherein my fame, and the reputation
of divers honest and learned are the question; when a name so full of
authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their insolence,
become the lowest scorn of the age; and those men subject to the
petulancy of every vernaculous orator, that were wont to be the care of
kings and happiest monarchs. This it is that hath not only rapt me to
present indignation, but made me studious heretofore, and by all my
actions, to stand off from them; which may most appear in this my latest
work, which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged, and to
my crown, approved; wherein I have laboured for their instruction and
amendment, to reduce not only the ancient forms, but manners of the
scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last, the
doctrine, which is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the
best reason of living. And though my catastrophe may, in the strict
rigour of comic law, meet with 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 agai