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What care, what rules, your heedless charms shall save,
Each nymph your rival, and each youth your slave?
Against your fame with fondness hate combines,
The rival batters, and the lover mines.
With distant voice neglected Virtue calls,
Less heard and less, the faint remonstrance falls;
Tired with contempt, she quits the slipp'ry reign,
And Pride and Prudence take her seat in vain.
In crowd at once, where none the pass defend,
The harmless freedom, and the private friend.
The guardians yield, by force superior plied;
To Int'rest, Prudence; and to Flatt'ry, Pride.
Here Beauty falls betrayed, despised, distressed,
And hissing Infamy proclaims the rest.

Where then shall Hope and Fear their objects find? Must dull Suspense corrupt the stagnant mind?

Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,

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Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?

Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,

No cries invoke the mercies of the skies?

Inquirer, cease; petitions yet remain

Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain.
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,

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But leave to Heav'n the measure and the choice.

Safe in his pow'r, whose eyes discern afar
The secret ambush of a specious prayer;
Implore his aid, in his decisions rest,

Secure, whate'er he gives, he gives the best.

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Yet, when the sense of sacred fires,

And strong devotion to the skies aspires, Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, 360 Obedient passions, and a will resigned;

For love, which scarce collective man can fill; For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill; For faith, that, panting for a happier seat, Counts death kind Nature's signal of retreat: 365 These goods for man the laws of Heav'n ordain, These goods he grants, who grants the pow'r to gain; With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind, And makes the happiness she does not find.

PROLOGUE

SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY LANE THEATRE, 1747

WHEN Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes
First reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;
Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new:
5 Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toiled after him in vain.
His pow'rful, strokes presiding Truth impressed,
And unresisted Passion stormed the breast.

Then Jonson came, instructed from the school,
10 To please in method, and invent by rule;
His studious patience and laborious art
By regular approach assailed the heart:

Cold Approbation gave the ling'ring bays,

For those, who durst not censure, scarce could praise.
A mortal born, he met the gen'ral doom,

But left, like Egypt's kings, a lasting tomb.

The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame, Nor wished for Jonson's art, or Shakespeare's flame. Themselves they studied, as they felt they writ; Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit.

Vice always found a sympathetic friend;

They pleased their age, and did not aim to mend.
Yet bards like these aspired to lasting praise,
And proudly hoped to pimp in future days.
Their cause was gen'ral, their supports were strong,
Their slaves were willing, and their reign was long:
Till Shame regained the post that Sense betrayed,
And Virtue called Oblivion to her aid.

Then, crushed by rules, and weakened as refined,
For years the pow'r of Tragedy declined;
From bard to bard the frigid caution crept,
Till Declamation roared whilst Passion slept;
Yet still did Virtue deign the stage to tread,
Philosophy remained, though Nature fled.
But forced, at length, her ancient reign to quit,
She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of Wit;
Exulting Folly hailed the joyful day,
And Pantomime and Song confirmed her sway.

But who the coming changes can presage,
And mark the future periods of the stage?

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Perhaps, if skill could distant times explore,
New Behns, new Durfeys, yet remain in store;
Perhaps where Lear has raved, and Hamlet died,
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride;

45 Perhaps (for who can guess th' effects of chance?)
Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance.
Hard is his lot that, here by Fortune placed,
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;
With ev'ry meteor of caprice must play,
50 And chase the new-blown bubbles of the day.
Ah! let not Censure term our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the public voice;
The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live.
55 Then prompt no more the follies you decry,
As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die;
'Tis yours, this night, to bid the reign commence
Of rescued Nature and reviving Sense;

To chase the charms of Sound, the pomp of Show,

60 For useful Mirth and salutary Woe;

Bid scenic Virtue form the rising age,

And Truth diffuse her radiance from the stage.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

FROM THE TRAVELLER

REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor,
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanding to the skies:
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:
Blessed be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their ev'ning fire;
Blessed that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair;

Blessed be those feasts with simple plenty crowned,
Where all the ruddy family around

Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,

Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,

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