Excerpt from The Dramatic Works of William Congreve Most authors on the stage at first appear Like widows' bridegrooms, full of doubt and fear They judge, from the experience of the dame, How hard a task it is to quench her flame And who falls short of furnishing a course, Up to his brawny predecessor's force, With utmost rage from her embraces thrown, Remains convicted, as an empty drone. Thus often, to his shame, a pert beginner Proves, in the end, a miserable sinner. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.