THE PROLOGUE TO THE STAGE, AT THE COCK-PIT.
| We know not how our play may pass this stage, |
| But by the best of poets in that age |
| THE MALTA-JEW had being and was made; |
| And he then by the best of actors play'd: |
| In HERO AND LEANDER one did gain |
| A lasting memory; in Tamburlaine, |
| This Jew, with others many, th' other wan |
| The attribute of peerless, being a man |
| Whom we may rank with (doing no one wrong) |
| Proteus for shapes, and Roscius for a tongue,— |
| So could he speak, so vary; nor is't hate |
| To merit in him who doth personate |
| Our Jew this day; nor is it his ambition |
| To exceed or equal, being of condition |
| More modest: this is all that he intends, |
| (And that too at the urgence of some friends,) |
| To prove his best, and, if none here gainsay it, |
| The part he hath studied, and intends to play it. |
