Fortune, that favours fools, these two short hours, <br />We wish away, both for your sakes and ours, <br />Judging spectators; and desire, in place, <br />To the author justice, to ourselves but grace. <br />Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known, <br />No country's mirth is better than our own: <br />No clime breeds better matter for your whore, <br />Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more, <br />Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the stage; <br />And which have still been subject for the rage <br />Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen <br />Did never aim to grieve, but better men; <br />Howe'er the age he lives in doth endure <br />The vices that she breeds, above their cure. <br />But when the wholesome remedies are sweet, <br />And in their working gain and profit meet, <br />He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased, <br />But will with such fair correctives be pleased: <br />For here he doth not fear who can apply. <br />If there be any that will sit so nigh <br />Unto the stream, to look what it doth run, <br />They shall find things, they'd think or wish were done; <br />They are so natural follies, but so shewn, <br />As even the doers may see, and yet not own.<br /><br />Ben Jonson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-alchemist-prologue/
