OCCASIONAL EPILOGUE, TO TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA, FRIDAY, JUNE 1IND, MDCCXCI. SPOKEN BY THE YOUNG HEROINE OF THE NIGHT, FOR HER OWN BENEFIT. CUSTOM, the tyrant of each fervile fool, Seems to have made it an establish'd rule, I Pleas'd or not, pleas'd, to hear you must submit, And, what's yet worse, a woman must rehearse, Not with coarse jefts to wound the modeft ear IO Your Your prefent favours and your past review'd, My place affign'd, you bade me flourish there. All must condemn the culture, not the foil: My ardent hope is, if to fame I rife, 20 25 30 25 To blow beneath the funfhine of your eyes. 40 THEATRE PROLOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF EDWINA,* THURSDAY, MARCH XXIX, MDCCXCII. SPOKEN BY M R. MIDDLETON. AT feafons meet, deck'd in obfequious rhyme, To palliate faults and ftem the critic's rage; An arduous task!--and to complete the bore We are doom'd to glean where others reap'd before : Yet to comply with custom, as all should, With customs well establish'd, wife and good, I for my client in this cause appearing, To night-with deference to begin my ftory- 5 10 Thus, forma pauperis, put in my plea? Or, vi et armis, in Theatric fury, 15 Brow-beat, as oft, the scheme is, judge and jury? No No-this were arrogant, and that were mean, A first attempt, our author bade me say, He but requests the indulgence of an hour; 20 Fresh fruits may grow and ripen to your taste. 23 His is a tale of woe, tho' well he knows All are not touch'd alike with other's woes; The laughing Muse you with applause pursue, On nobler grounds her elder fifter's due. To foften care and give the mind relief. When from compaffion's eye the dew-drops ftart, But owes to martyr'd innocence a tear. From When paffion fways, and prudence quits the field. As to the merits of our venturous Bard, Sufpend your judgment 'till the cause you've heard: 30 33 40 A lover, A lover, husband, mistress and a wife, In error's maze involved, he draws from life; 45 Better perhaps in other climates shown; A prophet meets leaft honour in his own. Man but a rush you strike the trembler dumb ; O'erwhelm'd in dread fufpenfe, the worst of states, 60 He patiently your high decifion waits ; There, in fome nook belike, fequefter'd stands ; EPILOGUE |