SPE

TO THE PLAYERS.

PEAK the fpeech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town crier had spoke my lines. And do not faw the air too much with your hand thus; but ufe all gently; for in the very torrent, tempeft, and, as I may fay, whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it fmoothnefs. Oh! it offends me to the foul, to hear a robusteous periwig-pated fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb fhews and noife: I could have fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing termagant; it outherods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

BE not too tame neither; but let your own difcretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this fpecial obfervance, that you o'erftep not the modesty of nature: for any thing fo overdone is from the purpose of playing; whofe end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to na ture; to fhew virtue her own feature, fcorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and preffure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy of, though it make the unfkilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve: the cenfure of one of which must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have feen play, and heard others praife, and that highly (not to F

fpeak

fpeak it profanely) that, neither having the accent of Chriftian, nor the gait of Chriftian, Pagan, nor man, have so ftrutted and bellowed, that I have thought fome of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity fo abominably.

AND let thofe that play your clowns, speak no more than is fet down for them for there be of them that will themfelves laugh, to fet on fome quantity of barren fpectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, fome neceffary queftion of the play be then to be confidered:that's villainous: and fhews a moft pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. SHAKESPEAR

CHA P. XII.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN VINDICATED.

EAV'N from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

H All but the page prefcrib'd, their prefent state:

From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know,
Or who could fuffer Being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reafon, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand juft rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n;
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or fyftem: into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.

What

What future blifs, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be bleft:
The foul, uneafy and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the

poor Indian whofe untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His foul proud Science never taught to fray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;

Yet fimple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'ng
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry wafte,

Where flaves once more their native land behold
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire:
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.
Go, wifer thou! and in thy fcale of fenfe,
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest fuch,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Deftroy all creatures for thy fport or guft,
Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone ingrofs not heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the Gon of GOD.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rufh into the skies.

Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes,

Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,

Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws

1

Of ORDER, fins againft th' Eternal Cause.

POPE.

CHA P. XIII.

ON THE ORDER OF NATURE.

EE, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,

SEE,

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progreffive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vaft chain of Being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human; angel, man;
Beaft, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee,
No glafs can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing.-On fuperior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great fcale's destroyed:
From Nature's chain whatever link you ftrike,
Tenth or ten thoufandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike effential to th' amazing Whole,
The leaft confusion but in one, not all
That fyftem only, but the whole muft fall.
Let Earth, unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky;

Let

Let ruling Angels from their fpheres be hurl'd,
Being on Being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature trembles to the throne of God.

All this dread ORDER break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-Oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!
What if the foot, ordain'd the duft to tread,
Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To ferve mere engines to the ruling Mind?.
Juft as abfurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Juft as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whofe body Nature is, and God the foul:
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the ftars, and bloffems in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unfpent;
Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Ceafe then, nor ORDER Imperfection name:
Our proper blifs depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n heftows on thee.