While in all points with other lands she vied,
The stage alone to Scotland was denied:
Mistaken zeal, in times of darkness bred,
O'er the best minds its gloomy vapour spread;
Taste and Religion were supposed at strife,
And 'twas a sin-to view this glass of life!
When the Muse ventured the ungracious task
To play elusive with unlicensed mask,
Mirth was restrain'd by statutory awe,
And tragick greatness fear'd the scourge of law;
Illustrious heroes arrant vagrants seem'd,
And gentlest nymphs were sturdy beggars deem'd.
This night loved George's free enlightened age,
Bids royal favour shield the Scottish stage:
His royal favour every bosom cheers,
The Drama now with dignity appears.
Hard is my fate, if murmurings there be,
Because the favour is announced by me.
Anxious, alarm'd, and awed by every frown,
May I entreat the candour of the town?
You see me here, by no unworthy art;
My All I venture where I've fixed my heart.
Fondly ambitious of an honest fame,
My humble hopes your kind indulgence claim.
I wish to hold no right but by your choice;
I'll risk my Patent on the Publick voice.
Prologue to the Comedy of Variety.
AMID the rivals of contending trade,
That court Variety's successive aid,
Two neighbouring houses most exert their cares
To deck with novelty their patent wares;
Both in their turns your generous custom gain,
For both a powerful company maintain
In Covent-garden, and at Drury-lane.
What emulation fires this rival pair-
Variety their everlasting care!
What choice assortments each presents to view!
New furbish'd remnants, now whole pieces-new;
And now old patterns, by the scissars skill,
Sliced into safety-like a cut bank-bill.
Here all the sattin of Circassia shines,
Or homespun stuff with Scottish plaid combines. There checquer'd Harlequins fair Virtue calls To Negro nymphs, in linsey-wolsey shawls;
Chictaws and Tictaws all the town entice -
True eastern splendour!- nothing but full price."
'Tis good old Lun rebukes the haughty boast;
Stalks from his tomb, and sinks a half-price ghost.
What then, to justly win this precious name,
What true Variety now sues for fame?
Let your own judgment fix our author's plea
To that we trust to-night's Variety.
No fostering paragraph our Muse can boast,
To slip young laurels in the Morning Post;
Or cull the seedling puffs, at random set,
To thrive transplanted in the Noon Gazette.
Such bankrupt tricks let false ambition play,
And live on paper-credit-day by day;
Variety disdains to trust her cause
To selfish flattery, and to bought applause.
That Brussels Gazette stop. The prompter's puff
The prompter's eye, in a fine phrenzy fit,
Glances from pit to box, from box to pit;
And as his fancy bodies forth whole rows
Of absent belles and visionary beaux,
assists the ideal vapours,
And gives them local fixtures in the papers. There the bold tropes of adulation glow, Resplendent crowds the teeming house o'erflow; Repeated bursts attend the scene throughout, And the play closes with a general shout.
But this fictitious currency is past—
False drafts on Fame must be disgraced at last. In wealth, as wits, for treasure, or applause, True genuine credit is the publick cause
The laws of taste, at least, should still be freeAssert them kindly-for Variety.
His Poems were published in 2 vols. 1793.
SET in the silver sea a diamond bright,
Dear native Albion, would I sing thy praise
I need but ask of truth his purest light,
To lend the lyrick Muse her proudest blaze. Borrowing from fable, what we boast our own, Let foreign fancy turn the florid tale; Whilst worshipping, thy sea-sequester'd throne, We, what we truly paint, with rapture hail.
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