SMILIND A.

Soft Simplicetta doats upon a Beau; Prudina likes a Man, and laughs at show. Their feveral graces in my SHARPLR meet } Strong as the footman, as the mafter sweet.

LOVET.

Ceafe your contention, which has been too long; I grow impatient, and the tea's too ftrong. Attend, and yield to what I now decide; The equipage shall grace Smilinda's fide: The fnuff box to Cardelia 1 decree, Now leave complaining, and begin your tea.

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

Un jour dit un Auteur, &c.

ONCE (fays an Author, where I need not say )

Two trav'lers found an oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the difpute grew ftrong,
While fcale in hand Dame Justice past along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame Juftice weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, fwallows it, before their fight.
The cause of ftrife remov'd fo rarely well,
There take (fays Juftice) take ye each a shell.

Seen with wit and beauty feldom.

'Tis a fear that starts at shadows.
'Tis, (no, 'tisn't ) like Miss Meadows.
'Tis a Virgin hard of feature,
Old, and void of all good-nature;

Lean and fretful; would seem wife;
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
'Tis an ugly envious shrew,

That rails at dear Lepell and You.

Occafioned by fome Verses of his Grace the Duke of BUCKINGHAM.

MUSE, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends,

And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.
Let crowds of critics now my verse affail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain,
Time, health, and fortune are not loft in vain.
Sheffield approves, confenting Phoebus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

NS

A

PROLOGUE

BY Mr. POPE,

in 1733,

To a Play for Mr. DENNIS's benefit, when he was old, blind, and in great distress, a little before his death.

S when that Hero, who in each campaign, Had brav'd the Goth, and many a Vandal flain, Lay fortune-ftruck, a fpectacle of woe! Wept by each friend, forgiv'n by ev'ry foe : Was there a gen'rous, a reflecting mind, But pitied BELISARIUS old and blind? Was there a chief but melted at the fight? A common foldier, but who clubb'd his mite? Such, fuch emotions should in Britons rise, When prefs'd by want and weakness DENNIS lies; Dennis, who long had warr'd with modern Huns, Their quibbles routed, and defy'd their puns; A defp'rate bulwark, sturdy, firm, and fierce Against the Gothic fons of frozen verse :

How chang'd from him who made the boxes groan, And shook the ftage with thunders all his own!

Stood up to dash each vain PRETENDER'S hope,
Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the POPE!
If there's a Briton then, true bred and born,
Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in fcorn;
If there's a critic of diftinguish'd rage;

If there's a senior, who contemns this age;
Let him to-night his just affiftance lend,
And be the Critic's, Briton's, Old Man's friend.

PROLOGUE

то

Mr. ADDISON'S

TRAGEDY OF CATO.

Tow

O wake the foul by tender ftrokes 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, Commanding tears to ftream through ev'ry age; Tyrants no more their favage nature kept, And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept. Our author shuns by vulgar fprings to move The hero's glory, or the virgin's love; In pitying love, we but our weakness show, And wild ambition well deferves its woe. Here tears shall flow from a more gen'rous caufe, Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws; He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise, And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes. Virtue confefs'd in human shape he draws, What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was. No common object to your fight displays,