you would leave this villainous back-biting.

Your talents lie how to express your spite;
But, where is he who knows to praise aright?
You praise like cowards, but like critics fight.

Ladies, be wise, and wean these yearling calves,
Who, in your service too, are meer faux braves;
They judge, and write, and fight, and love--by halves.

Footnotes:
1. The humour of this intended prologue turns upon the unwillingness
displayed to attend King William into Ireland by many of the
nobility and gentry, who had taken arms at the Revolution. The
truth is, that, though invited to go as volunteers, they could not
but consider themselves as hostages, of whom William did not chuse
to lose sight, lest, while he was conquering Ireland, he might,
perchance, lose England, by means of the very men by whom he had
won it. The disbanding of the royal regiment had furnished a
subject for the satirical wit of Buckingham, at least, such a piece
is printed in his Miscellanies; and for that of Shadwell, in his
epilogue to Bury-fair. But Shadwell was now poet-laureat, and his
satire was privileged, like the wit of the ancient royal jester.
Our author was suspected of disaffection, and liable to
misconstruction: For which reason, probably, he declined this
sarcastic prologue, and substituted that which follows, the tone of
which is submissive, and conciliatory towards the government.
Contrary to custom, it was spoken by a woman.

2. In allusion to his being deprived of the office of poet laureat.

3. The Inniskilling horse, who behaved with great courage against King
James, joined Schomberg and King William's forces at Dundalk, in
1689, rather resembled a foreign frey-corps, than regular troops.
"They were followed by multitudes of their women; they were uncouth
in their appearance; they rode on small horses, called _Garrons_;
their pistols were not fixed in holsters, but dangled about their
persons, being slung to their sword-belts; they offered, with
spirit, to make always the forlorn of the army; but, upon the first
order they received, they cried out, 'They could thrive no longer,
since they were now put under orders.'--_Memoirs_, Vol. II. p. 133.
The allusion in the next verse is to the dreadful siege of
Londonderry, when the besieged suffered the last extremities of
famine. The account of this memorable leaguer, by the author just
quot