BOOK THE FIRST

O born in sin, and forth in folly brought! 
Works damned, or to be damned! (your father’s fault) 
Go, purified by flames ascend the sky, 
My better and more Christian progeny! 
Unstained, untouched, and yet in maiden sheets; 
While all your smutty sisters walk the streets. 
Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland, 
Sent with a pass, and vagrant through the land; 
Not sail, with Ward, to ape-and-monkey climes, 
Where vile mundungus trucks for viler rhymes; 
Not sulphur-tipped, emblaze an alehouse fire; 
Not wrap up oranges, to pelt your sire! 
O! pass more innocent, in infant state, 
To the mild limbo of our father Tate: 
Or peaceably forgot, at once be blessed 
In Shadwell’s bosom with eternal rest! 
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return, 
Where things destroyed are swept to things unborn.’ 

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VIII. Doubts of Worthiness

    Cibber makes use of original sin as a scapegoat for the failure of several of his "damned" or poorly received plays.  He assumes that they will go to a purgatory and so achieve an afterlife.  He then considers his unsold manuscripts as being purer than those "smutty sisters," or sold manuscripts being passed around eagerly in the streets.  He thinks that at least since they are not being sold they will not be used against him such as by being used to wrap up oranges to pelt at him while on stage.  
     "Shadwell's bosom" is a pun on "Abraham's bosom," an inscrutable phrase often thought to be a kind of limbo.