She, at whose name I shed these spiteful tears, CARDELIA. Wretch that I was! how often have I swore, SMILINDA. How many maids have Sharper's vows deceived How many cursed the moment they believed! Yet his known falsehoods could no warning prove. Ah! what is warning to a maid in love? CARDELIA. But of what marble must that breast be form'd, To gaze on Basset, and remain unwarm'd? When kings, queens, knaves, are set in decent rank, Exposed in glorious heaps the tempting bank, Guineas, half-guineas, all the shining train; The winner's pleasure, and the loser's pain: In bright confusion open rouleaus lie, They strike the soul, and glitter in the eye. Fired by the sight, all reason I disdain ; My passions rise, and will not bear the rein. Look upon Basset, you who reason boast; And see if reason must not there be lost. SMILINDA. What more than marble must that heart compose Can hearken coldly to my Sharper's vows? Then, when he trembles! when his blushes rise CARDELIA. At the Groom-porter's batter'd bullies play, SMILINDA. Soft Simplicetta dotes upon a beau; Prudina likes a man, and laughs at show. Their several graces in my Sharper meet; Strong as the footman, as the master sweet. LOVET. Cease your contention, which has been too long; I grow impatient, and the tea's too strong. Attend, and yield to what I now decide; The equipage shall grace Smilinda's side: The snuff-box to Cardelia I decree; Now leave complaining, and begin your tea. VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU. ONCE (says an author, where I need not say) Two travellers found an oyster in their way; Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew strong While, scale in hand, dame Justice pass'd along. Before her each with clamour pleads the laws; Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause. Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful right, Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight. The cause of strife removed so rarely well, 'There, take,' says Justice, 'take you each a shell We thrive at Westminster on fools like you: 'Twas a fat oyster-Live in peace-Adieu.' ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUES 'WHAT is prudery ?"-"Tis a beldam, 'Tis an ugly, envious shrew, Occasioned by some Verses of HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. MUSE, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends. Let crowds of critics now my verse assail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail: This more than pays whole years of thankless pain, Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends, And I and malice from this hour are friends. PROLOGUE BY MR. POPE, To a Play for Mr. Dennis's Benefit, in 1733, when he was old, blind, and in great distress, a little before his Death. As when the hero, who in each campaign Had braved the Goth, and many a Vandal slain, How changed from him who made the boxes groan If there's a senior, who contemns this age; PROLOGUE TO SOPHONISBA. WHEN earning, after the long Gothic night, * I have been told by Savage, that of the Prologue to Sophonisba, the first part was written by Pope, who could With arts arising, Sophonisba rose : The tragic muse, returning, wept her woes. What foreign theatres with pride have shown, The heroine rise, to grace the British scene. To night our home-spun author would be true. Well-pleased to give our neighbours due applause, Nature! informer of the poet's art, Whose force alone can raise or melt the heart, MACER:-A CHARACTER. WHEN simple Macer, now of high renown, First sought a poet's fortune in the town, not be persuaded to finish it; and that the concluding lines were written by Mallet Dr. Johnson. |