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OUR bard, to modern epilogue a foe,

Thinks such mean mirth but deadens generous woe;
Dispels in idle air the moral sigh,

And wipes the tender tear from Pity's eye:

No more with social warmth the bosom burns;

But all the unfeeling selfish man returns.

Thus he began :--And you approved the strain;
Till the next couplet sunk to light and vain.
You checked him there.-To you, to reason just,
He owns he triumphed in your kind disgust.
Charmed by your frown, by your displeasure graced,
He hails the rising virtue of your taste.1

Wide will its influence spread as soon as known;
Truth to be loved, needs only to be shown.
Confirm it once, the fashion to be good,

1 Sir Harris Nicholas concludes, from these lines, that the original epilogue was offensive from its indelicacy.

(Since fashion leads the fool, and awes the rude)
No petulance shall wound the public ear;
No hand applaud what honour shuns to hear;
No painful blush the modest cheek shall stain;
The worthy breast shall heave with no disdain.
Chastised to decency, the British stage

Shall oft invite the fair, invite the sage:

Both shall attend well pleased, well pleased depart ; Or if they doom the verse, absolve the heart.

PROLOGUE TO MALLET'S "MUSTAPHA."1

SINCE Athens first began to draw mankind,
To picture life, and show the impasssioned mind;
The truly wise have ever deemed the stage
The moral school of each enlightened age.
There, in full pomp, the Tragic Muse appears
Queen of soft sorrows, and of useful fears.
Faint is the lesson reason's rules impart;

She pours it strong, and instant through the heart.
If virtue is her theme, we sudden glow
With generous flame; and what we feel we grow.
If vice she paints, indignant passions rise;
The villain sees himself with loathing eyes,
His soul starts, conscious, at another's groan,
And the pale tyrant trembles on his throne.

1 Produced at Drury Lane, 13th February 1739.

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