Poets themselves must fall like those they sung, 75 Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. E'en he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, Shall shortly want the gen’rous tear he pays; Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart; 80 Life's idle bus'ness at one gasp be o'er, The muse forgot, and thou belov’d no more!

PROLOGUE

то
MR. ADDISON'S

TRAGEDY OF CATO.
ΤΟ

wake the soul by tender strokes 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 firit trod the stage, 5
Commanding tears to stream through ev'ry age.
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our Author shun's by vulgar springs 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 shall flow from a more generous cause,
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws:
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,

15
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confefs'd in human fhape he draws;
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was:
No common obječt to your fight displays,
But what with pleasure Heav'n itself furveys ;
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little fenate laws,
What bofom beats not in his country's cause?

Who

30

Who sees him act, but envies every deed?

25
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed ?
E’en when proud Cæsar, ʼmidst triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations, and the pomp

of

wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state,
As her dead father's rev'rend image past
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercast;
The triumph ceas’d, tears gush'd from ev'ry eye;
The world's great victor pass’d unheeded by;
Her last good man dejected Rome ador’d,

35 And honour'd Cæfar's less than Cato's sword.

Britons ! attend : be worth like this approv'd,
And show you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honest scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom the subdu'd ;
Your scenes precariously sublists too long

41
On French translation and Italian song:
Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage;
Be justly warm’d with your own native rage:
Such plays alone should win a British ear,

45 As Cato's felf had not disdain'd to hear.

EPILOGUE

TO
MR. ROWE's

JANE SHORE.

DESIGNED FOR MRS. OLDFIELD.
PRODIGIOUS this!

the frail-one of our Play
From her own sex should mercy find to-day!
You might have held the pretty

head aside,
Peep'd in your fans, been serious, thus, and cry'd,
The play may pals—but that strange creature, Shore,
I can't-indeed now I fo hate a whore-

6
Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless full,
And thanks his stars he was not born a fool;
So from a fifter finner you fall hear,
« How strangely you expose yourself, my dear!"

20

But let me die, all raillery apart,
Our sex are still forgiving at their heart ;
And, did not wicked custom so contrive,
We'd be the best good-natur'd things alive.
There are, 'tis true, who tell another tale,

15
That virtuous ladies envy while they rail;
Such r ge without betrays the fire within ;
In some close corner of the foul they fin;
Still hoarding up, most scandalously nice,
Amidst their virtues, a reserve of vice.
The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns,
Scoids with her maid, or with her chaplain crams.
Would you enjoy soft nights, and folid dinners ?
Faith, gallants, board with saints, and bed with sinners.
Well, if ur Author in the Wife offends,

es He has a husband that will make amends : He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving ; And ture fuch kind good creatures may be living. In days of old they pardon'd breach of vows; Stern Cato's self was no relentless spouse :

30 Plu-Plutarch, what's his name, that writes his life? Tells us, that Cato dearly lov'd his wife : Yet if a friend, a night or so, should need her, He'd recommend her as a {pecial breeder. To lend a wife few here would scruple make ; 35 But, pray, which of you all would take her back? Tho’ with the Stoic Chief our stage may ring, The Stoic Husband was the glorious thing. The man had courage, was a fage, 'tis true, And lov’d his country—But what's that to you ? 40 Those Itrange examples ne'er where made to fit ye, But the kind cuckold might inftruct the City : There many an honest man may copy Cato, Who ne'er saw naked sword, or look'd in Plato. If, after all, you think it a disgrace,

45 That Edward's Miss thus perks it in your To see a piece of failing fleth and blood, In all the rest so impudently good; Faith, let the modest Matron's of the Town Come here in crowds, and stare the strumpet down. 50

face;

Advertisement THE following Translations were selected from many others done by the Author in his youth; for the most part, indeed, but a sort of Exercijes, while he was improving himself in the languages, and carried, by his early bent to Poetry, to perform them rather in verse than profe. Mr. Dryden's Fables came out about that time, which occafioned the Translations froin Chaucer. They were first separately printed, in miscellanies, by 7. Tonson and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the Quarto Eidition of 1717. The Imitations of English Autbors were done as early, some of them at fourteen or fifieen years old. (P.)

(WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1711.]

advertisement.

THE hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer's House of Fame. The design is in a manner entirely altered, the descriptions and most of the parricul..r thoughts my own yet I could not suffer it to be printed without this acknowledginent. The reader wo would compare this with Chaucer, may berin with his Third Book of Farne, there being nothing in the two first books that antuer to their titie. (P.]

10

IN that soft season when descending fhow'rs

Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flow'rs ; When op'ning buds falute the welcome day, And earth relenting feels the genial ray; As balmy sleep had charm'd my cares to rest, 5 And love itself was baniih'd from my breast, (What time the morn mysterious visions brings, While purer slumbers spread their golden wings,) A train of phantoms in wild order rose, And, join'd, this intellectual scene compose.

I ftood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies, The whole creation open to my eyes: In air self-balanc'd hung the globe below, Where mountains rise and circling oceans flow : Here naked rocks and empty wastes were seen; 15 There tow'ry cities, and the forests green: Here failing ships delight the wand'ring eyes ; There trees and intermingled temples rise : Now a clear sun the shining scene displays, The transient landscape now in clouds decays. 20

O'er the wide prospect as I gaz'd around, Sudden I heard a wild promiscuous found, Like broken thunders that at distance roar, Or billows inurm’ring on the hollow shore: Then gazing up, a glorious pile beheld,

25 Whofe tow'ring summit ambient clouds conceald. High on a rock of ice the structure lay; Steep its afcent, and slipp'ry was the way: The wondrous rock like Parian marble shone, And leem'd, to distant fight, of folid stone: 30 Inscriptions here of various names I view'd, The greater part by hostile Time subdu'd;

Yet