Like Eastern Kings a lazy flate they keep, And fep'rate from their kindred dregs below; But thou, falfe guardian of a charge too good, 25 30 Thus fhall your wives, and thus your children fall: The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! 35 40 So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow 45 For others good, or melt at others woe. What can atone (oh ever injur'd shade !) Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid? No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear Pleas'd thy pale ghoft, or grac'd thy mournful bier: 50 By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, By frangers honour'd, and by ftrangers mourn'd! What tho' no friends in fable weeds appear, 55 Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year, And bear about the mockery of woe бо 65 To midnight dances, and the public show? A heap of duft alone remains of thee, 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be ! Poets themselves must fall, like those they fung, 75 Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. Ev'n he, whofe foul now melts in mournful lays, Shall shortly want the gen'rous tear he pays; Then from his clofing eyes thy form fhall part, And the laft pang shall tear thee from his heart, Life's idle bus'nefs at once gafp be o'er, The Mufe forgot, and thou belov❜d no more! 80 PROLOGUE TO MR. ADDISON'S TRAGEDY OF CAT T O. O wake the foul by tender ftrokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage, Commanding tears to stream thro' ev'ry age; Tyrants no more their favage nature kept, And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept. Our author fhuns by vulgar fprings to move The hero's glory, or the virgin's love; In pitying Love, we but our weakness show, And wild Ambition well deserves its woe. Here tears fhall flow from a more gen'rous cause, Such tears as Patriots shed for dying Laws: He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rife, And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes. Virtue confefs'd in human shape he draws, What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was : No common object to your fight difplays, But what with pleasure Heav'n itself furveys, 10 15 20 A brave man ftruggling in the storms of fate, Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed? 25 35 Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in ftate; 30 41 On French tranflation, and Italian fong. Dare to have fenfe yourselves; affert the ftage, Be juftly warm'd with your own native rage: 45 EPILOGUE то Mr. Rowe's JANE SHORE. Defigned for Mrs. OLDFIELD. PRODIGIOUS this! the Frail- one of our Play From her own fex fhould mercy find to-day! You might have held the pretty head afide, Juft as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless fkull, So from a fifter finner you fhall hear, 6 "How ftrangely you expose yourself, my dear " 10 But let me die, all raillery apart, Our fex are still forgiving at their heart; There are, 'tis true, who tell another tale, Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams. 15 20 |