KING. And leave the unhappy nymph for you. But oh!
Forbear, my lord, to grieve,
And know your Rosamond does live.
If 'tis joy to wound a lover,
How much more to give him ease!
When his passion we discover,
Oh how pleasing 'tis to please!
The bliss returns, and we receive
Transports greater than we give.
O quickly relate
This riddle of fate!
My impatience forgive,
Does Rosamond live?
QUEEN. The bowl, with drowsy juices filled,
From cold Egyptian drugs distilled,
In borrowed death has closed her eyes:
But soon the waking nymph shall rise,
And, in a convent placed, admire
The cloistered walls and virgin choir:
With them in songs and hymns divine
The beauteous penitent shall join,
And bid the guilty world adieu—
KING. How am I blest if this be true! Aside.
QUEEN. Atoning for herself and you.
KING. I ask no more! secure the fair
In life and bliss: I ask not where:
For ever from my fancy fled,
May the whole world believe her dead,
That no foul minister of vice
Again my sinking soul entice
Its broken passion to renew,
But let me live and die with you.
QUEEN. How does my heart for such a prize
The vain, censorious world despise !
Though distant ages, yet unborn,
For Rosamond shall falsely mourn,
And with the present times agree
To brand my name with cruelty;
How does my heart for such a prize
The vain censorious world despise !
But see your slave, while yet I speak, From his dull trance unfettered break! As he the potion shall survive,
KING. O happy day! O pleasing view.
My queen forgives-
No more I'll change,
No more I'll grieve;
But ever thus united live.
SIR TR., awaking. In which world am I! all I see,
Every thicket, bush, and tree,
So like the place from whence I came,
That one would swear it were the same.
My former legs too, by their pace!
And by the whiskers, 'tis my face!
The self-same habit, garb, and mien!
They ne'er would bury me in green.
GRIDELINE and SIR TRUSTY.
GRID. Have I then lived to see this hour,
And took thee in the very bower?
SIR TR. Widow Trusty, why so fine?
Why dost thou thus in colours shine?
Thou shouldst thy husband's death bewail
In sable vesture, peak, and veil.
GRID. Forbear these foolish freaks, and see
How our good king and queen agree.
Why should not we their steps pursue,
And do as our superiors do?
SIR TR. Am I bewitched, or do I dream?
I know not who, or where I am,
Or what I hear, or what I see,
But this I'm sure, howe'er it be,
It suits a person in my station
T'observe the mode and be in fashion.
Then let not Grideline the chaste
Offended be for what is past,
And hence anew my vows I plight
To be a faithful, courteous knight.
GRID. I'll too my plighted vows renew,
Since 'tis so courtly to be true.
Since conjugal passion
Is come into fashion,
And marriage so blest on the throne is,
Like a Venus I'll shine,
Be fond and be fine,
And Sir Trusty shall be my Adonis. SIR TR. And Sir Trusty shall be thy Adonis.
The KING and QUEEN advancing.
KING. Who to forbidden joys would rove,1
That knows the sweets of virtuous love?
Hymen, thou source of chaste delights,
Cheerful days, and blissful nights,
Thou dost untainted joys dispense,
And pleasure join with innocence:
Thy raptures last, and are sincere
From future grief and present fear.
BOTH. Who to forbidden joys would rove,
That knows the sweets of virtuous love?
PROLOGUE TO THE TENDER HUSBAND.2
SPOKEN BY MR. WILKS.
In the first rise and infancy of Farce,
When fools were many, and when plays were scarce,
The raw, unpractised authors could, with ease,
A young and unexperienced audience please:
No single character had e'er been shown,
But the whole herd of fops was all their own;
Rich in originals, they set to view,
In every piece, a coxcomb that was new.
But now our British theatre can boast
Drolls of all kinds, a vast, unthinking host!
Who to forbidden joys.] So careful was this excellent man
our passions on the side of truth," even in his gayest and slightest compositions.
2 A comedy written by Sir Richard Steele.
Fruitful of folly and of vice, it shows
Cuckolds, and cits, and bawds, and pimps, and beaux;
Rough country knights are fond of every shire;
Of every fashion gentle fops appear;
And punks of different characters we meet,
As frequent on the stage as in the pit.
Our modern wits are forced to pick and cull,
And here and there by chance glean up a fool:
Long ere they find the necessary spark,
They search the town, and beat about the Park;
To all his most frequented haunts resort,
Oft dog him to the ring, and oft to court,
As love of pleasure or of place invites ;
And sometimes catch him taking snuff at White's.
Howe'er, to do you right, the present age
Breeds very hopeful monsters for the stage;
That scorn the paths their dull forefathers trod,
And won't be blockheads in the common road.
Do but survey this crowded house to-night :-
Here's still encouragement for those that write.
Our author, to divert his friends to-day,
Stocks with variety of fools his play;
And that there may be something gay and new,
Two ladies-errant has exposed to view:
The first a damsel, travelled in romance;
The t'other more refined; she comes from France:
Rescue, like courteous knights, the nymph from danger;
And kindly treat, like well-bred men, the stranger.
EPILOGUE TO THÉ BRITISH ENCHANTERS.1
WHEN Orpheus tuned his lyre with pleasing woe,
Rivers forgot to run, and winds to blow,
While listening forests covered, as he played,
The soft musician in a moving shade.
That this night's strains the same success may find,
The force of magic is to music joined;
Where sounding strings and artful voices fail,
The charming rod and muttered spells prevail.
A dramatic poem written by the Lord Lansdown.
Let sage Urganda wave the circling wand
On barren mountains, or a waste of sand,
The desert smiles; the woods begin to grow,
The birds to warble, and the springs to flow.
The same dull sights in the same landscape mixt,
Scenes of still life, and points for ever fixed,
A tedious pleasure on the mind bestow,
And pall the sense with one continued show;
But as our two magicians try their skill,
The vision varies, though the place stands still,
While the same spot its gaudy form renews,
Shifting the prospect to a thousand views.
Thus (without unity of place transgrest)
The enchanter turns the critic to a jest.
But howsoe'er,1 to please your wandering eyes,
Bright objects disappear and brighter rise:
There's none can make amends for lost delight,
While from that circle we divert your sight.
HORACE.-ODE III., BOOK III.
Augustus had a design to rebuild Troy, and make it the metropolis of the Roman empire, having closeted several senators on the project: Horace is supposed to have written the following Ode on this occasion.
THE man resolved, and steady to his trust,
Inflexible to ill, and obstinately just,
May the rude rabble's insolence despise,
Their senseless clamours and tumultuous cries;
The tyrant's fierceness he beguiles,
And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies,
And with superior greatness smiles.
Not the rough whirlwind, that deforms
Adria's black gulf, and vexes it with storms,
The stubborn virtue of his soul can move;
Not the red arm of angry Jove,
That flings the thunder from the sky,
And gives it rage to roar, and strength to fly.
Should the whole frame of nature round him break,
In ruin and confusion hurled,
1 But HOWSOE'ER.] A word, which nobody would now use in verse, and not many in good prose.
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