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Mr. Cooke's Original Poems

with Imitations and Translations of Several Select Passages of the Antients, In Four Parts: To which are added Proposals For perfecting the English Language

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PROLOGUE the Fourth. TO LOVE and REVENGE,
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163

PROLOGUE the Fourth. TO LOVE and REVENGE,

OR THE VINTNER Outwitted, A Ballad-Opera performed in the Year 1729.

As routed Squadrons quit the hostile Field,
O'erpow'r'd by Numbers, yet too brave to yield,
Their Troops they rally, and their Loss supply,
Once more resolv'd the Fate of War to try,
So from successless Toils our Heads we raise,
Studious to please, and proud to aim at Praise:
Your Smiles alone can animate the Stage,
Inspire with comic Mirth or tragic Rage:

164

New Life we breathe, when crown'd with your Applause,
And glory to pursue so just a Cause:
Honour commands, and we obey the Call;
And, if we fall, 'tis no Disgrace to fall:
In great Attempts alone true Merit lys;
He well deserves, in Fight who bravely dys.
No envious Motives shall our Labours stain;
By no mean Arts we wou'd our Glory gain:
Unenvy'd we behold each rival Stage,
And wish them happy in a grateful Age:
Where'e'r the Muse and her Attendants dwell,
Still may they flourish as they merit well.
From Scenes of old our present Tale we draw,
And make with Joy your Taste alone our Law;
We dare not on the comic Scene rely,
Till to the sprightly Song for Aid we fly:
Henceforth we may, if thus we gain your Praise,
Improve your Pleasures, and our Merits raise.
 

The first Play that was wrote on this Plan was by one Marston: it was altered by Christopher Bullock, a Comedian, almost an hundred Years after: and on the same Plan it was put into the Form in which it now is.