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EPILOGUE

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MR ROWE'S JANE SHORE.

Designed for Mrs Oldfield.

[Rowe's play of Jane Shore, which is only partly founded on history, was first acted Feb. 2, 1714, at Drury Lane. The character of Gloucester in this play is taken straight out of Shakspere. Great expectations were formed of the tragedy; and it was acted for nineteen nights. See (Geneste's) Account of the English Stage, II. 524. The famous Mrs Oldfield supported the part of the heroine, but Pope's Epilogue was never spoken.]

PRODIGIOUS this! the Frail-one of our Play
From her own Sex should mercy find to-day!
You might have held the pretty head aside,
Peep'd in your fans, been serious, thus, and cry'd,
The Play may pass-but that strange creature, Shore,
I can't indeed now-I so hate a whore-

Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,
And thanks his stars he was not born a fool;
So from a sister sinner you shall hear,

"How strangely you expose yourself, my dear!"
But let me die, all raillery apart,
Our sex are still forgiving at their heart;
And did not wicked custom so contrive,
We'd be the best good-natur'd things alive.
There are, 'tis true, who tell another tale,
That virtuous ladies envy while they rail;
Such rage without betrays the fire within :
In some close corner of the soul, they sin;
Still hoarding up, most scandalously nice,
Amidst their virtues a reserve of vice.

The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns,

Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams.

Would you enjoy soft nights and solid dinners?

Faith, gallants, board with saints, and bed with sinners.
Well, if our Author in the Wife offends,

He has a Husband that will make amends,
He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving,

And sure such kind good creatures may be living.

[Nicholas Rowe born in 1673, died in 1718. He was a friend of Addison's; and did good service to the cause of dramatic literature by his edition of Shakspere, accompanied by a biography. In his own plays he adopted blank verse in licu of the heroic couplet established by

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Dryden; but has nothing else to approach him to the Elisabethan tragedians. He is perhaps happiest in the delineation of female passion and weakness; but his Fair Penitent is a mere adaptation from Massinger.]

In days of old, they pardon'd breach of vows,
Stern Cato's self was no relentless spouse:
Plu-Plutarch, what's his name that writes his life?
Tells us, that Cato dearly lov'd his Wife:
Yet if a friend, a night or so should need her,
He'd recommend her as a special breeder.
To lend a wife, few here would scruple make,
But pray, which of you all would take her back!
Tho' with the Stoic Chief our stage may ring,
The Stoic Husband was the glorious thing.
The man had courage, was a sage, 'tis true,
And lov'd his country-but what's that to you?
Those strange examples ne'er were made to fit ye
But the kind cuckold might instruct the City:
There, many an honest man may copy Cato,
Who ne'er saw naked sword, or look'd in Plato.
If, after all, you think it a disgrace,

That Edward's Miss thus perks it in your face;
To see a piece of failing flesh and blood,
In all the rest so impudently good;
Faith, let the modest Matrons of the town

Come here in crowds, and stare the strumpet down.

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TRANSLATIONS

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IMITATIONS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Translations were selected from many others done by the Author in his Youth; for the most part indeed but a sort of Exercises, while he was improving himself in the Languages, and carried by his early Bent to Poetry to perform them rather in Verse than Prose. Mr Dryden's Fables came out about that time, which occasioned the Translations from Chaucer. They were first separately printed in Miscellanies by J. Tonson and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the Quarto Edition of 1717. The Imitations of English Authors, which are added at the end, were done as early, some of them at fourteen or fifteen years old; but having also got into Miscellanies, we have put them here together to complete this Juvenile Volume. P. [It should be observed that, according to Warburton's statement, it was never Pope's intention to include his Juvenile Translations in the edition of his works which he was preparing at the close of his life.]

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