Prologue

How difficult the task of those who aim, By lays dramatic, to arrive at same; Who fondly hope 'twill prove a work of ease, The appetites of all their guests to please? This vain attempt eludes the nicest care; For taste's as different as our faces are.

SOUTHERNE, whose tender muse could well impart, The noblest feelings to each melting heart; And raise, by force divine, for the distress'd, Grief's tend'rest sympathy in ev'ry breast; Who wanted but attention to command, The subject passions with a master hand, Was forc'd, when he adventur'd on the stage, To prostitute his genius to the Age; An Age, remarkable for wit and vice, When pleasure must be had at any price; When wounded virtue hung her languid head, And ev'ry sense of public shame was fled; When hapless poets, if they wish'd to eat, Must furnish—tho' regret—a luscious treat. This sad necessity, even DRYDEN'S muse, With such immoral pieces could abuse; In their deformity, his beauties fade, And all his laurels wither in their shade.

But now, when chaster judgment holds the scales, And taste, with delicacy join'd, prevails, From ribaldry to rescue virtuous lays, Must plead some favour, though it reach not praise.

Ye CALEDONIAN fair, in whom we find, Each charm of person, and each grace of mind; For Virtue's sake, a feeble genius spare, The cause of Virtue's your peculiar care; In you it lies to censure, or to save; To your protection take the ROYAL SLAVE.