One vote will then send Anjou back to France;
There let the meteor end his airy dance :
Else to the Mantuan soil he may repair,
E'en abdicated gods were Latium's care;
At worst, he 'll find some Cornish borough here.
PROLOGUE
TO THE MUSIC-MEETING,
WHERE music and more powerful beauties reign
Who can support the pleasure and the pain?
Here their soft magic those two sirens try,
And if we listen, or but look, we die.
Why should we then the wondrous tales admire
Of Orpheus' numbers, or Amphion's lyre?
Behold this scene of beauty, and confess
The wonder greater, and the fiction less:
Like human victims here we are decreed
To worship those bright altars where we bleed.
Who braves his fate in fields, must tremble here;
Triumphant love more vassals makes than fear.
No faction, homage to the fair denies ;
The right divine's apparent in their eyes.
That empire 's fix'd that's founded in desire;
Those fires, the vestals guard, can ne'er expire.
PROLOGUE
TO THE CORNISH SQUIRE,
WHO dares not plot in this good-natured age? Each place is privileged except the stage; There the dread phalanx of reformers come, Sworn foes to wit, as Carthage was to Rome;
Their ears so sanctified, no scenes can please,
But heavy hymns, or pensive homilies:
Truths, plainly told, their tender nature wound,
Young rakes must, like old patriarchs, expound;
The painted punk the proselyte must play,
And bawds, like fille-devotes, procure and pray.
How nature is inverted! Soon you'll see
Senates unanimous, and sects agree,
Jews at extortion rail, and monks at mystery.
Let characters be represented true,
An airy sinner makes an awkward prue.
With force and fitting freedom vice arraign;
Though pulpits flatter, let the stage speak plain.
If Verres gripes the poor, or Nænius write,
Call that the robber, this the parasite.
Ne'er aim to make an eagle of an owl,
Cinna's a statesman, Sydrophil a tool.
Our censurers with want of thought dispense,
But tremble at the hideous sin of sense.
Who would not such hard fate as ours bemoan?
Indicted for some wit, and damn'd for none.
But if, to-day, some scandal should appear,
Let those precise Tartuffs bind o'er Moliere.
Poet and Papist too, they'll surely maul,
There's no indulgences at Hicks's Hall.
Gold only can their pious spite allay,
They call none criminals that can but
The heedless shrines with victims they invoke,
They take the fat, and give the gods the smoke,
OPENING OF THE QUEEN'S THEATRE,
SUCH was our builder's art, that soon as named,
This fabric, like the infant world, was framed.
The architect must on dull order wait,
But 'tis the poet only can create.
None else, at pleasure, can duration give,
When Marble fails, the Muses' structures live.
The Cyprian fane is now no longer seen,
Though sacred to the name of love's fair queen.
Even Athens scarce in pompous ruin stands,
Though finish'd by the learn'd Minerva's hands.
More sure presages
from these walls we find,
By beauty' founded, and by wit design'd.
In the good age of ghostly ignorance,
How did cathedrals rise, and zeal advance!
The merry monks said orisons at ease,
Large were their meals, and light their
penances;
Pardon for sins was purchased with estates,
And none but
rogues in rags died reprobates.
But now, that pious pageantry's no more,
And stages thrive as churches did before.
Your own magnificence you here survey,
Majestic columns stand where dunghills lay,
And cars triumphal rise from carts of hay.
Swains here are taught to hope, and nymphs to fear,
And big Almanzors fight mock Blenheims here.
1 Lady Sunderland was pleased to lay the first stone.
Descending goddesses adorn our scenes,
And quit their bright abodes for gilt machines.
Should Jove, for this fair circle, leave his throne,
He'd meet a lightning fiercer than his own:
Though to the sun his towering eagles rise,
They scarce could bear the lustre of these eyes.
TO THE TRAGEDY OF CATO.
WHAT odd fantastic things we women do!
Who would not listen when young lovers woo?
What! die a maid, yet have the choice of two.
Ladies are often cruel to their cost:
To give you pain, themselves they punish most.
Vows of virginity should well be weigh'd;
Too oft they're cancell'd, though in convents made.
Would you revenge such rash resolves—you may
Be spiteful-and believe the thing we say;
We hate you, when you 're easily said nay.
How needless, if you knew us, were your fears!
Let love have eyes, and beauty will have ears.
Our hearts are form'd, as you yourselves would
Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse: [choose,
We give to merit, and to wealth we sell;
He sighs with most success that settles well.
The woes of wedlock with the joys we mix;
"Tis best repenting in a coach and six.
Blame not our conduct, since we but pursue
Those lively lessons we have learn'd from
you:
Your breasts no more the fire of beauty warms,
But wicked wealth usurps the power of charms.
What pains to get the gaudy thing you hate,
To swell in show, and be a wretch in state!
At plays you ogle, at the ring you bow;
Even churches are no sanctuaries now;
There golden idols all your vows receive;
She is no goddess who has nought to give.
Oh, may once more the happy age appear,
When words were artless, and the thoughts sincere;
When gold and grandeur were unenvied things,
And courts less coveted than groves and springs.
Love then shall only mourn when truth complains,
And constancy feel transport in its chains;
Sighs with success their own soft anguish tell,
And eyes shall utter what the lips conceal:
Virtue again to its bright station climb,
And beauty fear no enemy but time:
The fair shall listen to desert alone,
And every Lucia find a Cato's son.
COULD he whom my dissembled rigour grieves, But know what torment to my soul it gives; He'd find how fondly I return his flame, And want myself the pity he would claim. Immortal gods! why has your doom decreed Two wounded hearts with equal pangs should bleed? Since that great law, which your tribunal guides, Has join'd in love whom destiny divides; Repent, ye powers, the injuries you cause, Or change our natures, or reform your laws.
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