University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUE. WRITTEN BY JOHN TAYLOR, ESQ. AND SPOKEN BY MR. HOLMAN.

'Tis held that Pleasure rules this laughing age,
And Mirth has so monopolized the Stage,
That poor Melpomene in vain may swell
With rending woes, and direful stories tell,
No drops of kindred grief resistless start,
No sob responsive soothes her bursting heart,
Her sportive Sister reigns despotic here,
And if ye weep, Joy claims th' ecstatic tear.
If so, our Bard, alas! in luckless hour,
Has rashly try'd the scene's pathetic pow'r;
Critics perchance will scowl with fierce disdain,
Or giddy Fashion mock the tender strain.
But sure 'tis slander, Britons still can feel,
Still judge our efforts with impartial zeal,
Whether we frolic with the jocund Muse,
Or nobler strains of sacred sorrow chuse.
Let but Desert expand its dawning beam
Or on the sprightly, or the mournful theme,
And British sympathy shall still supply
Mirth's loudest roar, or Pity's tend'rest sigh;
Whether one spark of true poetic fire
Has touch'd our timid Poet's trembling lyre;
Whether he faintly gleam with borrow'd rays,
Or show at times, perhaps, a native blaze,
From your august award must soon appear,
Which he, alas! awaits with boding fear:
Yet sure no harsh decree we need presage,
From taunting fashion, or from critic rage;
For since his cause by Englishmen is try'd,
The sentence must incline to Mercy's side.
And if the drooping Minstrel of to-night
Has struck the melancholy chords aright;
If, while he fondly pours the plaintive line,
He aims to sadden only to refine;
If, true to Nature, Nature must prevail,
Each heart will soften with the melting tale;
And own, as once the sage Enthusiast sung,
Whose moral Harp the raptur'd Muses strung,
“The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears,
“Less pleasing far than Virtue's very tears.”