Why bad ye elfe, ye Pow'rs! her foul afpire
Above the vulgar flight of low defire ?
Ambition firft fprung from your bleft abodes;
The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods :
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breafts of Kings and Heroes glows!
Moft fouls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull fullen pris'ners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life that burn a length of years,
Useless, unseen, as lamps in fepulchres;
Like Eastern Kings a lazy state they keep,
And close confin'd in their own palace fleep.
From these perhaps (e'er nature bade her die)
Fate fnatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,
And fep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the foul to its congenial place,

Nor left one virtue to redeem her Race.

But thou, falfe guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deferter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks, now fading at the blast of death;
Cold is that breaft which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.

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to her quality, but confined from the fight of every one but the dependants of this rigid guardian.

Her defpondent lover transmitted feveral letters, on the faith of repeated afsurances that they would be privately delivered to her; but his hopes were betrayed, and his letters, instead of being presented to the object of his af fections, were sent to England, and only ferved to render her confinement more ftrait and fevere.

In this miferable and hopeless condition she languished a confiderable time, in fickness and forrow, till at length she put an end to her life with a sword which she bribed a woman-fervant to procure her, and was found yet warm upon the ground.

Being by the laws of the place denied Christian fepulture, she was interred without the leaft folemnity, being caft into the common earth without any mournful attendants to perform the last duties of affection, and only followed by fome young people in the neighbourhood, who bestrewed her grave with flowers.

Q2

Thus

Thus, if Eternal juftice rules the ball,

Thus fhall your wives, and thus your children fall :
On all the line a fudden vengeance waits,
And frequent herfes fhall beficge your gates.
There paffengers fhall ftand, and pointing say,
(While the long fun'rals blacken all the way)
Lo these were they, whofe fouls the Furies fteel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented país the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perifh all, whofe breaft ne'er learn'd to glow
For others good, or melt at others woe.

What can atone (oh ever-injur'd shade !)
Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleas'd thy pale ghoft, or grac'd thy mournful bier.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By ftrangers honour'd, and by ftrangers mourn'd!
What tho' no friends in fable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public fhow!
What tho' no weeping Loves thy afhes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face?
What tho' no facred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet fhall thy grave with rifing flow'rs be dreft,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breaft:
There fhall the Morn her earlieft tears beftow,
There the first rofes of the year shall blow;
While Angels with their filver wings o'erfhade
The ground, now facred by thy reliques made.

So peaceful refts, without a ftone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not,”
To whom related, or by whom begot;

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A heap

A heap of duft alone remains of thee,
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be !
Poets themselves muft fall, like thofe they fung,
Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Ev'n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall fhortly want the gen'rous tear he pays;
Then from his clofing eyes thy form fhall part,
And the last pang fhall tear thee from his heart,
Life's idle bufinefs at one gafp be o'er,
The Mufe forgot, and thou belov'd no more.

то

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PROLOGUE

Mr. ADDISON'S Tragedy of CATO.

O wake the foul by tender ftrokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to ftream thro' ev'ry age;
Tyrants no more their favage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author fhuns by vulgar fprings to move,
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;
In pitying Love, we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deferves its woe.
Here tears fhall flow from a more gen'rous caufe,
Such Tears as Patriots fhed for dying Laws :
He bids your breafts with ancient ardour rife,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.

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Virtue

Virtue confefs'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your fight displays,
But what with pleasure Heav'n itself surveys,
A brave man ftruggling in the ftorms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling ftate.
While Cato gives his little Senate laws,
What bofom beats not in his Country's cause?
Who fees him act, but envies ev'ry deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed ?
Ev'n when proud Cæfar 'midst triumphal cars,
The fpoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain and impotently great,
Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in ftate;
As her dead Father's rev'rend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercaft;
The Triumph ceas'd, tears gufh'd from ev'ry eye;
The World's great Victor pass'd unheeded by ;
Her laft good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæfar's lefs than Cato's fword.

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Dare to have fenfe yourselves; affert the stage,
Be juftly warm'd with your own native rage:
Such Plays alone fhould please a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not difdain'd to hear.

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Britons attend: be worth like this approv'd, And fhow, you have the virtue to be mov'd. With honeft scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdu'd; 40 Our scene precariously fubfifts too long On French tranflation, and Italian fong.

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EPILOGUE

То

Mr. Rowe's JANE SHORE.

Defigned for Mrs. OLDFIELD.

Prod

Rodigious this! the frail one of our play
From her own Sex fhould 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, 5
I can't indeed now I fo hate a whore
Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,
And thanks his ftars he was not born a fool;
So from a fifter finner you fhall hear,
"How ftrangely you expofe yourself, my dear?"
But let me die, all raillery apart,
Our sex are still forgiving at their heart;
And did not wicked cuftom fo contrive,
We'd be the beft, 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 fome clofe corner of the foul, they fin,
Still hoarding up, most scandalously nice,
Amidft their virtues a referve of vice.
The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns,
Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams.

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Wou'd