12
PROLOGUE.
To which I said,
'Take care then that my tale be follow'd out
By all the lieges in my royal vein:
But one that really suited time and place
Were such a medley, we should have him back
Who told the Winter's Tale to do it for us:
A Gothic ruin, and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,
And there with shrieks and strange experiments,
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all,
The nineteenth century gambols on the grass.
No matter; we will say whatever comes:
Here are we seven: if each man take his turn
We make a sevenfold story:' then began.
'Take care then that my tale be follow'd out
By all the lieges in my royal vein:
But one that really suited time and place
Were such a medley, we should have him back
Who told the Winter's Tale to do it for us:
A Gothic ruin, and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,
And there with shrieks and strange experiments,
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all,
The nineteenth century gambols on the grass.
No matter; we will say whatever comes:
Here are we seven: if each man take his turn
We make a sevenfold story:' then began.
