Judgment must sweat, and feel a mother's pains :
Vain fools! thus to diburb and rack their brains.
When more indulgent to the writer's ease,
You are too good to be so hard to please :
No fuch convulfive pangs it will require
To write---the pretty things which you
admire.
Our author then, to please you in your way,
Prefents you now a bauble of a play;
In gingling rhyme, well fortify'd and strong,
He fights entrench'd o'er head and ears in song.
If here and there fome evil-fated line
Should chance, through inadvertency, to fhine,
Forgive him, beaux; he means you no offence,
But begs you, for the love of fong and dance,
To pardon---all the poetry and fenfe.
DESIGNED FOR THE SAME.
WIT once, like Beauty, without art or drefs,
Naked and unadorn'd, could find fuccefs,
Till by fruition novelty destroy'd,
The nymph must find new charms to be enjoy'd.
As by his equipage the man you prize,
And ladies must have gems befide their eyes;
So fares it too with plays, in vain we write
Unless the mufic or the fhow invite,
Not Hamlet clears the charges of the night.
Would you but fix fome standard how to move,
We would transform to any thing you love :
EPILOGUE TO BRITISH ENCHANTERS. 219
Judge our defire by our coft and pains,
Sure in expence, uncertain in our gains.
But though we fetch from Italy and France
Our fopperies of tune and mode of dance,
Our sturdy Britons fcorn to borrow fenfe.
Howe'er to foreign fashions we fubmit,
Still every fop prefers his mother-wit.
In only wit this conftancy is shown,
For never was that arrant changeling known,
Who, for another's fenfe, would quit his own.
In all things elfe to love of change inclin'd,
Scarce in two following feffions can we find
That politician---but has chang`d his mind :
But fure fuch patriots change not, but forget,
'Tis want of memory, the curfe of wit.
Our author would excufe thefe youthful scenes,
Begotten at his entrance in his teens ;
Some childish fancies may approve the toy,
Some like the Mufe the more---for being a boy;
And ladies fhould be pleas'd, though not content,
To find fo young a thing not impotent.
Our stage reformers too he would difarm,
In charity fo cold, in zeal fo warm ;
And therefore, to atone for past abuses,
And gain the church-indulgence for the Mufes,
He gives his thirds to charitable uses.
PROLOGUE
To Mr. HIGGON's excellent TRAGEDY, called THE GENEROUS CONQUEROR.
None can intrigue in peace, or be a beau;
Nor wanton wife nor widow can be sped,
Not even Ruffel can inter the dead,
But ftrait this cenfor, in his whim of wit,
Strips and prefents you naked to the pit.
Thus critics fhould, like thefe, be branded foes,
Who for the poison only fuck the rose;
Rejecting what is fweet, like vultures they
Feed only on the carrion of a play,
Snarling and carping without wit or sense,
Impeach mistakes, o'erlooking excellence,
As if to every fop it might belong
Like fenators to cenfure, right or wrong.
But generous wits have more heroic views,
And love and honour are the themes they chuse.
From yon bright heaven* our author fetch'd his fire,
And paints the paffions that your eyes infpire;
Full of that flame, his tender fcenes he warms,
And frames his goddess by your matchless charms.
Peleus, in love with Thetis, by the affiftance of Proteus, obtains her favour; but Jupiter interpofing, Peleus in defpair confults Prometheus, famous for his skill in aftrology; upon whose prophecy, that the fon born of Thetis fhould prove greater than his father, Jupiter defifts. The prophecy was afterwards verified in the birth of Achilles, the fon of Thetis by Peleus.
Prometheus appears upon Mount Caucafus chained to a rock, with the vulture at his breast. Peleus enters, addreffig himself to Prometheus.
Ondemn'd on Caucafus to lie,
Still to be dying, not to die,
With certain pain, uncertain of relief
True emblem of a wretched lover's grief!
To whose inspecting eye 'tis given
To view the planetary way,
To penetrate eternal day,
And to revolve the starry heaven ;
To thee, Prometheus, I complain,
And bring a Heart as full of pain.
PROM. From Jupiter fpring all our woes,
Thetis is Jove's, who once was thine;
'Tis vain, O Peleus, to oppose
Thy torturer---and mine.
Contented with despair,
O wretched man! refign
Whom you adore, or else prepare
For change of torments, great as mine.
'Tis vain, O Peleus, to oppose
Thy torturer and mine.
PEL. In change of torments would be eafe ;
Could divine what lovers bear,
Even you, Prometheus, would confess
There is no vulture like Despair.
PROM. Ceafe, cruel Vulture, to devour.
PEL. Ceafe, cruel Thetis, to disdain.
THETIS ENTERS.
THE. Peleus, unjustly you complain.
PROM. Ceafe, cruel Vulture, to devour.
PEL. Ceafe cruel Thetis, to disdain.
THE. Peleus, unjustly you complain,
The gods, alas! no refuge find
From ills refiftlefs fates ordain :
I still am true---and would be kind.
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