Prologue to the Comedy of the Provok'd Husband

Ere yet the Comic Muse, with sprightly pow'r, Provokes the laugh, and leads the mirthful hour, Permit the Bard, in serious mood awhile To wake remembrance, and suspend the smile: Our scenes to-night no novel merit claim, Long-tried desert hath fix'd their lasting fame; The Characters that mark our chosen page Have long engross'd the veterans of the Stage. Who was not charm'd, when BARRY held to view The matchless portraiture which CIBBER drew? Each eye bestow'd, while he sustain'd the part, The melting tribute of the feeling heart: Pitied alike the Husband and the Peer, Felt his distress, and shar'd his manly tear: But when Compassion taught his breast to glow— When fond Forgiveness beam'd upon his brow— When with discordant pangs no more at strife, He caught with transport his repentant Wife: Chas'd with a kiss the sorrows from her cheek, And told in looks, what language could not speak; Reliev'd from silent agony the mind, Like heaving Aetna, when no more confin'd,— True to itself, and fir'd in Nature's cause, Burst in the torrent of extreme applause.

Not so our hope—altho' no frown we fear, Your gentle plaudits will content us here. For here we meet, tho' envious Factions low'r, To pass with pleasantry life's leisure hour— To snatch relief from ombre and quadrille; Employ the moments—not the time to kill— To vent our feelings, give fair Friendship birth, And bind it with the rosy wreath of mirth: Pleas'd, if our simple store, and artless toil, Can light in Beauty's cheek one grateful smile— More pleas'd, if when our softer scenes appear, We draw from Beauty's eye one tender tear.