T.

O 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 first trod the stage, 5
Commanding tears to stream thro' ev'ry age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author shuns 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 gen'rous 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 confess'd in human shape he draws, What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was: No common object to your sight displays, But what with pleasure Heav'n itself surveys, 20 A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state. While Cato gives his little Senate laws, What bosom beats not in his Country's cause? Who sees him act, but envies ev'ry deed? 25 Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed? Ev’n when proud Cæsar ’midst 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; 30 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 Cæsar'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 fromGreece,whom the subdu'd;
Your scene precariously subsists 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 self had not disdain'd to hear.

NOTes, VER. 37. Britons, attend :] Mr. Pope had written it arise, in the spirit of Poetry, and Lberty ; but Mr. Addison frighten’d at so daring an expression, which, he thought, squinted at rebellion, would have it alter'd, in the spirit of Prose and Politics, to attend.

VER. 46. As Cato's self, etc.] This alludes to that famous story of his going into the Theatre, and immediately coming out again,

Vol. I,

EPILOGUE

Τ ο

Mr. Rowe's JANE SHORE,

Design'd for Mrs, OLDFIELD.

Prodig

Rodigious 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 pass--but that strange çreature, Shore,
I can't--indeed now--I so hate a whore-- 6.
Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,
And thanks his stars he was not born a fool;
So from a filter finner

you

Thall hear,
“How strangely you expose yourself, my dear ?"
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,

II

rage

There are, 'tis true, who tell another tale, 15 That virtuous ladies

envy

while they rail;
Such without betrays the fire within
In some close corner of the soul, they sin;
Still hoarding up most scandalously nice,
Amidst their virtues a reserve of vice.
The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns,
Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams,
Would

you enjoy soft nights and folid dinners? Faith, gallants, board with faints, and bed with fin

20

ners.

Well, if our Author in the Wife offends, 25
He has a Husband that will make amends:
He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving,
And fure such kind good creatures may be living,
În days of old, they pardoned 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 special breeder.
To lend a wife, 'few here would scruple make, 35
Put, pray, which of you all would take her back?'