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Here tears shall flow from a more generous cause;
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws:
He bids your breasts with ancient ardor rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes:
Virtue confess'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys ;-
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, 21
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed ?
Ev'n when proud Cæsar, 'midst triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,

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Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state; 30
As her dead father's reverend image pass'd,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercast;
The triumph ceased; tears gush'd from every eye;
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by ;

leader of savages, was sufficiently improbable; but that passion should declaim in the language of either, was an impossibility. Even the love of Desdemona was attributed by her countrymen to witchcraft; yet what incomparably superior ground for passion was laid in the impetuous and fiery vividness of Othello, and the rich romance and exquisite sensibility of his fair Venetian!' It is said, in imperfect apology for Addison, that those scenes were an after thought, in compliment to the habits of the stage: it might more honestly be said, in tribute to the necessities of the stage. No play can ever effectually engage the interest of the audience without passion; and of all the movers of sympathy, the simplest, the most powerful, and the most universal, is love.

Her last good man dejected Rome adored,
And honor'd Cæsar's less than Cato's sword.

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Britons, attend: be worth like this approved; And show you have the virtue to be moved. With honest scorn the first famed Cato view'd Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdued:

Your scene precariously subsists too long

On French translation and Italian song.

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Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage;
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage :
Such plays alone should win a British ear,
As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hear.

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37 Britons, attend. It has been already remarked, that the original word was arise;' but it was thought too inflammatory such were the delicacies of the time.

PROLOGUE

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 that hero, who in each campaign
Had braved the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,
Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of wo,
Wept by each friend, forgiven by every foe;
Was there a generous, a reflecting mind,
But pitied Belisarius old and blind?
Was there a chief, but melted at the sight?
A common soldier, but who clubb'd his mite?
Such, such emotions should in Britons rise,
When press'd by want and weakness Dennis lies;
Dennis, who long had warr'd with modern Huns,
Their quibbles routed, and defied their puns;
A desperate bulwark, sturdy, firm, and fierce,
Against the Gothic sons of frozen verse.

9

How changed from him who made the boxes

groan,

And shook the stage with thunders all his own;

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7 Was there a chief, &c. The fine figure of the commander, in that capital picture of Belisarius, at Chiswick, supplied the poet with this beautiful idea.-Warburton.

12 Their quibbles routed, and defied their puns. An old gentleman of the last century, who used to frequent Button's coffeehouse, told me they had many pleasant scenes of Dennis's indignation and resentment, when Steele and Rowe, in particular, teazed him with a pun.-Warton.

Stood up to dash each vain pretender's hope,
Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the pope!
If there's a Briton then, true bred and born,
Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn;
If there's a critic of distinguish'd rage;
If there's a senior who contemns this age;
Let him to-night his just assistance lend;
And be the critic's, Briton's, old man's friend.

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PROLOGUE TO SOPHONISBA.

BY POPE AND MALLET.

WHEN learning, after the long Gothic night,
Fair, o'er the western world, renew'd its light,
With arts arising, Sophonisba rose ;

The Tragic Muse, returning, wept her woes :
With her the Italian scene first learn'd to glow, 5
And the first tears for her were taught to flow:
Her charms the Gallic Muses next inspired;
Corneille himself saw, wonder'd, and was fired.

10

What foreign theatres with pride have shown, Britain, by juster title, makes her own. When freedom is the cause, 'tis hers to fight; And hers, when freedom is the theme, to write. For this a British author bids again The heroine rise, to grace the British scene : Here, as in life, she breathes her genuine flame; She asks, what bosom has not felt the same? Asks of the British youth: is silence there? She dares to ask it of the British fair. To-night our home-spun author would be true, At once to nature, history, and you.

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* I have been told by Savage, that of the Prologue to Sophonisba, the first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it; and that the concluding lines were written by Mallet.-Johnson.