I know your merit,
And fee the piece's fire and spirit;
Yet friendship's zeal is ever hearty,
And dreads the efforts of a party.
The coach below, the clock gone five,
Now to the theatre we drive :
Peeping the curtain's eyelet through,
Behold the house in dreadful view!
Obferve how close the critics fit,
And not one bonnet in the pit.
With horror hear the galleries ring,
Nofy! Black Joke! God fave the King!
Sticks clatter, catcalls fcream, Encore!
Cocks crow, pit hiffes, galleries roar:
E'en cha' fome oranges is found
This night to have a dreadful found:
'Till, decent fables on his back,
(Your prologuizers all wear black)
The prologue comes; and, if its mine,
Its very good, and very fine.
If not, I take a pinch of snuff,
And wonder where you got fuch stuff.
That done, a-gape the critics fit,
Expectant of the comic wit.
The fiddlers play again pell-mell,
But hift! — the prompter rings his bell. -Down there! hats off! the curtain draws!
What follows is — the just applause.
HE JEALOUS WIFE! a Comedy! poor man!
A charming subject! but a wretched plan.
His skittish wit, o'erleaping the due bound,
Commits flat trefpafs upon tragic ground.
Quarrels, upbraidings, jealoufies, and spleen,
Grow too familiar in the comic fcene.
Tinge but the language with heroic chime,
'Tis Paffion, Pathos, Character, Sublime!
What round big words had fwell'd the pompous scene,
A king the husband, and the wife a queen!
Then might Distraction rend her graceful hair,
See fightless forms, and scream, and gape, and stare.
Drawcanfir death had rag'd without controul,
Here the drawn dagger, there the poison'd bowl.
What eyes had ftream'd at all the whining woe! What hands had thunder'd at each Hah! and Oh!
But peace! the gentle prologue custom sends,
Like drum and ferjeant, to beat up for friends.
At vice and folly, each a lawful game,
Our author flies, but with no partial aim.
He read the manners, open as they lie
In nature's volume to the general eye.
Books too he read, nor blufh'd to use their store.
He does but what his betters did before.
Shakespeare has done it, and the Grecian stage
Caught truth of character from Homer's page.
If in his fcenes an honeft skill is fhewn,
And borrowing, little, much appears his own;
If what a master's happy pencil drew
He brings more forward, in dramatic view;
To your decifion he submits his cause,
Secure of candour, anxious for applause.
But if, all rude, his artlefs fcenes deface The simple beauties which he meant to grace; If, an invader upon others land,
He spoil and plunder with a robber's hand,
Do justice on him! As on fools before,
And give to Blockheads paft one Blockhead more.
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