The Works of the Late Aaron Hill ... In Four Volumes. Consisting of Letters on Various Subjects, And of Original Poems, Moral and Facetious. With An Essay on the Art of Acting |
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Prologue, spoke by Mr. Johnson.
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 | The Works of the Late Aaron Hill |  |
Prologue, spoke by Mr. Johnson.
As painters mingle shade to set off light,So contraries are mix'd, when poets write:
All shadow would be darkness—Too much blaze
Would dazzle—each, by each, new force displays.
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An unbred brute, against a wrong-bred beau:
Our sprightly fop, to froth and France inclin'd,
Fills his gay vacuum, with Parisian wind.
Heavy by nature, volatile by art,
Be-dull'd to briskness, and mis-call'd a smart.
Oppos'd to this extreme, our home-grown shoot,
Whose sense wants breeding, thinks himself to brute:
Wise without pity—without temper plain,
His friendship festers—and his love gives pain.
His rough sincerity, ill-dress'd, uncouth,
Offends by coarseness, whom it charms by truth:
All virtues, if unprun'd, some folly blights;
The rugged kindness, wanting sweetness, frights:
And pert good-nature, coxcomb'd o'er, with flame,
Provokes, like insolence, and stings, like shame.
Betwixt these two, our author had design'd
A third, fix'd, stedfast, English medium mind:
Fram'd, like his country, with just hand to sway
Th'unresting balance—byass'd neither way:
But here deficient—he submits his cause,
An humble stranger to the worth, he draws:
Had some of your accomplish'd minds supplied
His failing skill—he had not err'd, so wide,
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Falls short, condemn not the unreaching blow.
Should his imperfect scheme your spleen provoke;
Be kind, or all his balance will be broke.
| The Works of the Late Aaron Hill | |