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, To the Fatal Extravagance: spoke by Mr. Ryan.
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 | The Works of the Late Aaron Hill |  |
PROLOGUE, To the Fatal Extravagance: spoke by Mr. Ryan.
Warm'd by a kindred sense of England's woes,
A Caledonian muse, with pity glows:
From ruin'd hopes a saving moral takes,
And paints th' unhappy, for the happy's sake:
Scotland's new taste our meaning scene supplies,
And a first flight, on tragic pinions, tries,
Brave and long-fam'd in arms, her warlike race
Have trod the fields of death with dauntless grace!
Fierce and untir'd in blood, have nobly dar'd,
And every toil and every danger shar'd:
Now, fir'd by rising arts, she grasps the Bays,
And her old cant, like falling stocks, decays:
Her long-lost muse new-lights her antient flame,
And our scene blazes with recover'd fame.
A Caledonian muse, with pity glows:
From ruin'd hopes a saving moral takes,
And paints th' unhappy, for the happy's sake:
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And a first flight, on tragic pinions, tries,
Brave and long-fam'd in arms, her warlike race
Have trod the fields of death with dauntless grace!
Fierce and untir'd in blood, have nobly dar'd,
And every toil and every danger shar'd:
Now, fir'd by rising arts, she grasps the Bays,
And her old cant, like falling stocks, decays:
Her long-lost muse new-lights her antient flame,
And our scene blazes with recover'd fame.
We teach to-night—ah! would 'twere not too late,
How rash-believing avarice galls a state!
What private sorrows, from wild hazards flow!
And, how false hope produces certain woe.
How rash-believing avarice galls a state!
What private sorrows, from wild hazards flow!
And, how false hope produces certain woe.
THIS, the most natural business of the stage,
Will all your generous hearts, 'tis hop'd, engage:
None can their pity for those woes conceal,
Which most, who hear, perhaps, too deeply, feel.
The rants of ruin'd kings, of mighty name,
For pompous misery—small compassion claim:
Empires o'erturn'd, and heroes, held in chains,
Alarm the mind, but give the heart no pains.
To ills remote from our domestic fears,
We lend our wonder, but with-hold our tears.
Will all your generous hearts, 'tis hop'd, engage:
None can their pity for those woes conceal,
Which most, who hear, perhaps, too deeply, feel.
The rants of ruin'd kings, of mighty name,
For pompous misery—small compassion claim:
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Alarm the mind, but give the heart no pains.
To ills remote from our domestic fears,
We lend our wonder, but with-hold our tears.
Not so, when, from such passion, as our own,
Some favourite folly's dreadful fate is shown;
There the soul bleeds for what it feels, within,
And conscious pity shakes, at suffering sin.
Some favourite folly's dreadful fate is shown;
There the soul bleeds for what it feels, within,
And conscious pity shakes, at suffering sin.
O! give attention to the moving scene:
And shun, what yet may be, by what has been.
And shun, what yet may be, by what has been.
| The Works of the Late Aaron Hill | |