 | The Perfidious Brother |  |
PROLOGUE.
What Crouds of Candidates, in ev'ry Age,Put in, and for the Tragick Bays engage?
And yet how few of this Aspiring Train
Deserve the Lawrel, which they hope to gain?
Mistaken in the Task, Some build on Dress;
Others from Fights and Tumults form Success:
With Thunder, or with Trumpets, wound your Ears,
And trail their awkard Guards with rusty Spears.
Our Author speaks not This, in Pride of Heart,
To carp at Others, or enhance His Art.
But as he wishes, he might once behold
The Tragick Scene be what it was of Old.
When Plays were wrote Guilt's Triumphs to controul;
And Poets labour'd to improve the Soul.
If then Instruction was the Stage's Aim,
That Lesson must be best, which Most could claim:
In This, if Ought, our Author hopes he may
Assume some little Merit from his Play.
Since, stripp'd of Regal Pomp, and glaring Show,
His Muse reports a Tale of Private Woe.
Works up Distress from Common Scenes in Life,
A Treach'rous Brother, and an Injur'd Wife.
Silent, attend; nor censure him, as Vain,
If that to Please, he strives to give you Pain.
And if from Nature he has form'd his Parts,
He'll spare your Hands, so he can move your Hearts.
| The Perfidious Brother | |