Publish proposals, laws for taste prescribe,
And chaunt the praise of an Italian tribe;
Let him reverse kind nature's first decrees,
And teach ev'n Brent a method not to please;
But never shall a truly British age
Bear a vile race of eunuchs on the stage.
The boasted work's call'd national in vain,
If one Italian voice pollutes the strain.
Where tyrants rule, and slaves with joy obey,
Let slavish minstrels pour th' enervate lay;
To Britons far more noble pleasures spring,
'n native notes whilst Beard and Vincent sing.
Might figures give a title unto fame,
What rival should with Yates dispute her claim?
But justice may not partial trophies raise,
Vor sink the actress in the woman's praise,
Still hand in hand her words and actions go,
And the heart feels more than the features show:
For through the regions of that beauteous face
We no variety of passions trace:
Dead to the soft emotions of the heart,
No kindred softness can those eyes impart;
The brow, still fix'd on sorrow's sullen frame,
Void of distinction, marks all parts the same.
What's a fine person, or a beauteous face,
Jnless deportment gives them decent grace?
Bless'd with all other requisites to please,
Some want the striking elegance of ease;
The curious eye their awkward movement tires;
They seem like puppets led about by wires.
Others, like statues, in one posture still,
Give great ideas of the workman's skill;
Wond'ring, his art we praise the more we view,
And only grieve he gave not motion too.
Weak of themselves are what we beauties call,
It is the manner which gives strength to all.
This teaches ev'ry beauty to unite,

And brings them forward in the noblest light.
Happy in this, behold, amidst the throng,
With transient gleam of grace, Hart sweeps along.
If all the wonders of external grace,
A person finely turn'd, a mould of face,
Where, union rare, expression's lively force
With beauty's softest magic holds discourse,
Attract the eye! if feelings void of art,
Rouse the quick passions, and inflame the heart;
If music sweetly breathing from the tongue,
Captives the ear, Bride must not pass unsung.
When fear, which rank ill-nature terms conceit,
By time and custom conquer'd, shall retreat;
When judgment tutor'd by experience sage,
Shall shoot abroad and gather strength from age;
When Heav'n in mercy shall the stage release
From the dull slumbers of a still-life piece;
When some stale flow'r, disgraceful to the walk,
Which long hath hung,though wither'd,on the stalk,
Shall kindly drop, then Bride shall make her way,
And merit find a passage to the day;
Brought into action, she at once shall raise
Her own renown, and justify our praise.
Form'd for the tragic scene, to grace the stage,
With rival excellence of love and rage,

Nobly disdainful of each slavish art,
She makes her first attack upon the heart;
Pleas'd with the summons, it receives her laws,
And all is silence, sympathy, applause.

But when, by fond ambition drawn aside,
Giddy with praise, and puff'd with female pride,
She quits the tragic scene, and, in pretence
To comic merit, breaks down nature's fence;
I scarcely can believe my ears or eyes,
Or find out Cibber through the dark disguise.
Pritchard, by nature for the stage design'd,
In person graceful, and in sense refin'd;
Her art as much as nature's friend became;
Her voice as free from blemish as her fame;
Who knows so well in majesty to please,
Attemper'd with the graceful charms of ease?

When, Congreve's favour'd pantomime to grace, She comes a captive queen of Moorish race; When love, hate, jealousy, despair and rage, With wildest tumults in her breast engage, Still equal to herself is Zara seen;

Her passions are the passions of a queen.

When she to murder whets the timorous Thane, I feel ambition rush through ev'ry vein; Persuasion hangs upon her daring tongue, My heart grows flint, and ev'ry nerve's new strung. In comedy-"Nay, there," cries critic," hold, Pritchard's for comedy too fat and old. Who can, with patience, bear the gray coquette, Or force a laugh with overgrown Julett? Her speech, look, action, humour, all are just; But then, her age and figure give disgust."

Are foibles then, and graces of the mind,
In real life, to size or age confin'd?
Do spirits flow, and is good-breeding plac'd
In any set circumference of waist?
As we grow old, doth affectation cease,
Or gives not age new vigour to caprice?
If in originals these things appear,
Why should we bar them in the copy here?
The nice punctilio-mongers of this age,
The grand minute reformers of the stage,
Slaves to propriety of ev'ry kind,
Some standard-measure for each part should find,
Which when the best of actors shall exceed,

Let it devolve to one of smaller breed.
All actors too upon the back should bear
Certificate of birth;-time, when ;-place, where.

SH

For how can critics rightly fix their worth,
Unless they know the minute of their birth?
An audience too, deceiv'd, may find too late
That they have clapp'd an actor out of date.

Figure, I own, at first may give offence,
And harshly strike the eye's too curious sense:
But when perfections of the mind break forth,
Humour's chaste sallies, judgment's solid worth;
When the pure genuine flame by nature taught,
Springs into sense, and ev'ry action's thought;
Before such merit all objections fly,

Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick's six feet high.
Oft have I, Pritchard, seen thy wondrous skill,
Confess'd thee great, but find thee greater still.
That worth, which shone in scatter'd rays before,
Collected now, breaks forth with double pow'r.
The Jealous Wife! on that thy trophies raise,
Inferior only to the author's praise.

From Dublin, fam'd in legends of romance For mighty magic of enchanted lance, With which her heroes arm'd victorious prove, And like a flood rush o'er the land of love, Mossop and Barry came-names ne'er design'd By fate in the same sentence to be join'd. Rais'd by the breath of popular acclaim, They mounted to the pinnacle of fame; There the weak brain, made giddy with the height, Spurr'd on the rival chiefs to mortal fight. Thus sportive boys, around some bason's brim, Behold the pipe-drawn bladders circling swim: But if from lungs more potent, there arise Two bubbles of a more than common size, Eager for honour they for fight prepare, Bubble meets bubble, and both sink to air.

Mossop, attach'd to military plan,

Still kept his eye fix'd on his right-hand man.
Whilst the mouth measures words with seeming
The right hand labours, and the left lies still; [skill,
For he resolv'd on scripture-grounds to go,
What the right doth the left-hand shall not know.
With studied impropriety of speech,

He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach;
To epithets allots emphatic state,

Whilst principals, ungrac'd, like lacquies wait;
In ways first trodden by himself excels,
And stands alone in indeclinables;
Conjunction, preposition, adverb join
To stamp new vigour on the nervous line:
In monosyllables his thunders roll,

He, she, it, and, we, ye, they, fright the soul.
In person taller than the common size,
Behold where Barry draws admiring eyes!
When lab'ring passions, in his bosom pent,
Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent;
Spectators, with imagin'd terrors warm,
Anxious expect the bursting of the storm:
But all unfit in such a pile to dwell,

His voice comes forth, like Echo from her cell;
To swell the tempest needful aid denies,

And all a-down the stage in feeble murmurs dies.
What man,
like Barry, with such pains, can err
In elocution, action, character?

What man could give, if Barry was not here,
Such well-applauded tenderness to Lear?
Who else can speak so very, very fine,
That sense may kindly end with ev'ry line?
Some dozen lines before the ghost is there,
Behold him for the solemn scene prepare.
See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb,
Puts the whole body into proper trim.—
From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art,
Five lines hence comes a ghost, and, ha! a start.
When he appears most perfect, still we find
Something which jars upon, and hurts the mind.
Whatever lights upon a part are thrown,
We see too plainly they are not his own.
No flame from nature ever yet he caught;
Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught;
He rais'd his trophies on the base of art,
And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part.
Quin, from afar, lur'd by the scent of fame,
A stage Leviathan, put in his claim,
Pupil of Betterton and Booth, Alone,
Sullen he walk'd, and deem'd the chair his own.
For how should moderns, mushrooms of the day,
Who ne'er those masters knew, know how to play?
Gray-bearded vet'rans, who, with partial tongue,
Extol the times when they themselves were young?
Who having lost all relish for the stage,
See not their own defects, but lash the age,
Receiv'd with joyful murmurs of applause
Their darling chief, and lin❜d his favourite cause.
Far be it from the candid Muse to tread
Insulting o'er the ashes of the dead,

But, just to living merit, she maintains,
And dares the test, whilst Garrick's genius reigns;
Ancients in vain endeavour to excel,
Happily prais'd, if they could act as well.
But though prescription's force we disallow,
Nor to antiquity submissive bow;
Though we deny imaginary grace,
Founded on accidents of time and place;
Yet real worth of ev'ry growth shall bear
Due praise, nor must we, Quin, forget thee there.
His words bore sterling weight, nervous and
In manly tides of sense they roll'd along. [strong
Happy in art, he chiefly had pretence

To keep up numbers, yet not forfeit sense.
No actor ever greater heights could reach
In all the labour'd artifice of speech.

Speech! Is that all?—And shall an actor found
An universal fame on partial ground?
Parrots themselves speak properly by rote,
And, in six months, my dog shall howl by note.
I laugh at those, who, when the stage they tread,
Neglect the heart, to compliment the head;
With strict propriety their care's confin'd
To weigh out words, while passion halts behind.
To syllable-dissectors they appeal;
Allow them accent, cadence,-fools may feel;
But, spite of all the criticising elves, [selves.
Those who would make us feel, must feel them-
His eyes, in gloomy socket taught to roll,
Proclaim'd the sullen habit of his soul.

Heavy and phlegmatic he trod the stage,
Too proud for tenderness, too dull for rage.
When Hector's lovely widow shines in tears,
Or Rowe's gay rake dependant virtue jeers,
With the same cast of features he is seen

To chide the libertine, and court the queen.
From the tame scene, which without passion flows,
With just desert his reputation rose;

Nor less he pleas'd, when, on some surly plan,
He was, at once, the actor and the man.

In Brute he shone unequall'd: all agree
Garrick's not half so great a brute as he.
When Cato's labour'd scenes are brought to view,
With équal praise the actor labour'd too;
For still you'll find, trace passions to their root,
Small diff'rence 'twixt the stoic and the brute.
In fancied scenes, as in life's real plan,
He could not, for a moment, sink the man.
In whate'er cast his character was laid,
Self still, like oil, upon the surface play'd.
Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in:
Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff,-still 'twas Quin.
Next follows Sheridan-a doubtful name,
As yet unsettled in the rank of fame.
This, fondly lavish in his praises grown,
Gives him all merit: that allows him none.
Between them both we'll steer the middle course,
Nor, loving praise, rob judgment of her force.

Just his conceptions, natural and great:
His feelings strong, his words enforc'd with weight.
Was speech-fam'd Quin himself to hear him speak,
Envy would drive the colour from his cheek:
But step-dame nature, niggard of her grace,
Deny'd the social pow'rs of voice and face.
Fix'd in one frame of features, glare of eye,
Passions, like chaos, in confusion lie:

In vain the wonders of his skill are try'd
To form distinctions nature hath deny'd.
His voice no touch of harmony admits,
Irregularly deep and shrill by fits:
The two extremes appear like man and wife,
Coupled together for the sake of strife.

His action's always strong, but sometimes such,
That candour must declare he acts too much.
Why must impatience fall three paces back?
Why paces three return to the attack?
Why is the right-leg too forbid to stir,
Unless in motion semicircular?

Why must the hero with the nailor vie,

And hurl the close clench'd fist at nose or eye?
In royal John, with Philip angry grown,
I thought he would have knock'd poor Davies down.
Inhuman tyrant! was it not a shame,
To fright a king so harmless and so tame?
But, spite of all defects, his glories rise;
And art, by judgment form'd, with nature vies:
Behold him sound the depth of Hubert's soul,
Whilst in his own contending passions roll.
View the whole scene, with critic judgment scan,
And then deny him merit if you can.
Where he falls short, 'tis nature's fault alone;
Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own.

Last Garrick came.-Behind him throng a train Of snarling critics, ignorant as vain.

One finds out,-"He's of stature somewhat low,Your hero always should be tall, you know.— True natʼral greatness all consists in height." Produce your voucher, critic.-"Sergeant Kite." Another can't forgive the paltry arts

By which he makes his way to shallow hearts;
Mere pieces of finesse, traps for applause-
"Avaunt, unnatʼral start, affected pause."

For me, by nature form'd to judge with phlegm,
I can't acquit by wholesale, nor condemn.
The best things carried to excess are wrong:
The start may be too frequent, pause too long;
But, only us'd in proper time and place,
Severest judgment must allow them grace.

If bunglers, form'd on imitation's plan, Just in the way that monkies mimic man, Their copied scene with mangled arts disgrace, And pause and start with the same vacant face; We join the critic laugh, those tricks we scorn, Which spoil the scenes they mean them to adorn. But when, from nature's pure and genuine source, These strokes of acting flow with gen'rous force, When in the features all the soul's pourtray'd, And passions, such as Garrick's, are display'd, To me they seem from quickest feelings caught: Each start is nature; and each pause is thought.

When reason yields to passion's wild alarms, And the whole state of man is up in arms; What but a critic could condemn the play'r, For pausing here, when cool sense pauses there? Whilst, working from the heart, the fire I trace, And mark it strongly flaming to the face; Whilst, in each sound, I hear the very man; I can't catch words, and pity those who can.

Let wits, like spiders, from the tortur'd brain
Fine-draw the critic-web with curious pain;
The gods, a kindness I with thanks must pay,-
Have form'd me of a coarser kind of clay;
Nor stung with envy, nor with spleen diseas'd,
A poor dull creature, still with nature pleas'd;
Hence to thy praises, Garrick, I agree,

And, pleas'd with nature, must be pleas'd with thee.
Now might I tell, how silence reign'd throughout,
And deep attention hush'd the rabble rout!
How ev'ry claimant, tortur'd with desire,
Was pale as ashes, or as red as fire:

But, loose to fame, the Muse more simply acts,
Rejects all flourish, and relates mere facts.

The judges, as the several parties came, With temper heard, with judgment weigh'd each claim,

And, in their sentence happily agreed,

In name of both, great Shakspeare thus decreed.
"If manly sense; if nature link'd with art;
If thorough knowledge of the human heart;
If pow'rs of acting vast and unconfin'd;
If fewest faults with greatest beauties join'd;
If strong expression, and strange pow'rs which lie
Within the magic circle of the eye;

If feelings which few hearts, like his, can know,

And which no face so well as his can show; Deserve the pref'rence ;-Garrick, take the chair; Nor quit it-till thou place an equal there."

THE PROPHECY OF FAMINE.

A SCOTS PASTORAL.

INSCRIBED TO JOHN WILKES, ESQUIRE.

When Cupid first instructs his darts to fly
From the sly corner of some cook-maid's eye,
The stripling raw, just enter'd in his teens,
Receives the wound, and wonders what it means;
His heart, like dripping, melts, and new desire
Within him stirs, each time she stirs the fire;
Trembling and blushing he the fair-one views,
And fain would speak, but can't-without a Muse.
So to the sacred mount he takes his way,
Prunes his young wings, and tunes his infant lay,
His oaten reed to rural ditties frames,

To flocks and rocks, to hills and rills proclaims,
In simplest notes, and all unpolish'd strains,
The loves of nymphs, and eke the loves of swains.
Clad, as your nymphs were always clad of yore,
In rustic weeds-a cook-maid now no more-
Beneath an aged oak Lardella lies,

[vale:

Green moss her couch; her canopy the skies.
From aromatic shrubs the roguish gale
Steals young perfumes, and wafts them through the
The youth, turn'd swain, and skill'd in rustic lays,
Fast by her side his am'rous descant plays.
Herds low, flocks bleat, pies chatter, ravens scream,
And the full chorus dies a-down the stream.
The streams, with music freighted, as they pass,
Present the fair Lardella with a glass;
And Zephyr, to complete the love-sick plan,
Waves his light wings, and serves her for a fan.

But, when maturer judgment takes the lead,
These childish toys on reason's altar bleed; [awe,
Form'd after some great man, whose name breeds
Whose ev'ry sentence fashion makes a law,
Who on mere credit his vain trophies rears,

And founds his merit on our servile fears;

Then we discard the workings of the heart,
And nature's banish'd by mechanic art;
Then, deeply read, our reading must be shown;
Vain is that knowledge which remains unknown.
Then ostentation marches to our aid,
And letter'd pride stalks forth in full parade;
Beneath their care behold the work refine,
Pointed each sentence, polish'd ev'ry line:
Trifles are dignified, and taught to wear
The robes of ancients with a modern air,
Nonsense with classic ornaments is grac'd,
And passes current with the stamp of taste.

Then the rude Theocrite is ransack'd o'er,
And courtly Maro call'd from Mincio's shore;
Sicilian Muses ou our mountains roam,
Easy and free as if they were at home:
Nymphs, naiads, nereids, dryads, satyrs, fauns,
Sport in our floods, and trip it o'er our lawns;

Flow'rs, which once flourish'd fair in Greece and

Rome,

More fair revive in England's meads to bloom;
Skies without cloud exotic suns adorn;

And roses blush, but blush without a thorn;
Landscapes unknown to dowdy nature rise,
And new creations strike our wond'ring eyes.
For bards like these, who neither sing nor say,
Grave without thought, and without feeling gay;
Whose numbers in one even tenor flow,
Attun'd to pleasure, and attun'd to woe;
Who, if plain common sense her visit pays,
And mars one couplet in their happy lays,
As at some ghost affrighted, start and stare,
And ask the meaning of her coming there;
For bards like these a wreath shall Mason bring,
Lin'd with the softest down of folly's wing;
In love's pagoda shall they ever doze,
And Gisbal kindly rock them to repose;
My lord to letters as to faith most true-
At once their patron and example too-
Shall quaintly fashion his love-labour'd dreams,
Sigh with sad winds, and weep with weeping

streams;

Curious in grief (for real grief, we know,
Is curious to dress up the tale of woe),
From the green umbrage of some Druid's seat,
Shall his own works in his own way repeat.

Me, whom no Muse of heav'nly birth inspires,
No judgment tempers when rash genius fires;
Who boast no merit but mere knack of rhyme,
Short gleams of sense, and satire out of time;
Who cannot follow where trim fancy leads
By prattling streams o'er flow'r-empurpled meads;
Who often, but without success, have pray'd
For apt alliteration's artful aid;

Who would, but cannot, with a master's skill,
Coin fine new epithets, which mean no ill;
Me, thus uncouth, thus ev'ry way unfit
For pacing poesy, and ambling wit,

Taste with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place
Amongst the lowest of her favour'd race.

Thou, nature, art my goddess-to thy law
Myself I dedicate.-Hence, slavish awe,
Which bends to fashion, and obeys the rules,

Impos'd at first, and since observ'd by fools.
Hence those vile tricks which mar fair nature's hue,
And bring the sober matron forth to view
With all that artificial tawdry glare,
Which virtue scorns, and none but strumpets wear.
Sick of those pomps, those vanities, that waste
Of toil, which critics now mistake for taste,
Of false refinements sick, and labour'd ease,
Which art, too thinly veil'd, forbids to please,
By nature's charms (inglorious truth!) subdu'd,
However plain her dress, and 'haviour rude,
To northern climes my happier course I steer,
Climes where the goddess reigns throughout the
Where, undisturb'd by art's rebellious plan, [year,
She rules the loyal laird, and faithful clan.

To that rare soil, where virtues clust'ring grow, What mighty blessings doth not England owe?

What waggon loads of courage, wealth and sense,
Doth each revolving day import from thence?
fo us she gives, disinterested friend,
Faith without fraud, and Stuarts without end.
When we prosperity's rich trappings wear,
Come not her gen'rous sons and take a share?
And if, by some disastrous turn of fate,
Change should ensue, and ruin seize the state,
shall we not find, safe in that hallow'd ground,
such refuge as the Holy Martyr found?

Nor less our debt in science, though deny'd
By the weak slaves of prejudice and pride.
hence came the Ramsays, names of worthy note,
Of whom one paints, as well as t' other wrote;
Thence Home, disbanded from the sons of pray'r
For loving plays, though no dull dean was there;
Thence issued forth at great Macpherson's call,
That old, new, epic pastoral Fingal;
Thence Malloch, friend alike of church and state,
Of Christ and liberty, by grateful fate
Rais'd to rewards, which in a pious reign
All darling infidels should seek in vain;
Thence simple bards, by simple prudence taught,
To this wise town by simple patrons brought,
n simple manner utter simple lays,
And take, with simple pensions, simple praise.
Waft me some Muse to Tweed's inspiring stream,
Where all the little loves and graces dream,
Where slowly winding the dull waters creep,
And seem themselves to own the power of sleep;
Where on the surface lead, like feathers, swims,
There let me bathe my yet unhallow'd limbs,
A s once a Syrian bath'd in Jordan's flood,
Wash off my native stains, correct that blood
Which mutinies at call of English pride,
And deaf to prudence, rolls a patriot tide.

From solemn thought which overhangs the brow Of patriot care, when things are-God knows how; From nice trim points, where honour, slave to rule, In compliment to folly, plays the fool;

From those gay scenes where mirth exalts his pow'r,
And easy humour wings the laughing hour;
From those soft better moments, when desire
Beats high, and all the world of man's on fire,
When mutual ardours of the melting fair
More than repay us for whole years of care;
At friendship's summons will my Wilkes retreat,
And see, once seen before, that ancient seat,
That ancient seat, where majesty display'd
Her ensigns, long before the world was made!
Mean narrow maxims, which enslave mankind,
Ne'er from its bias warp thy settled mind.
Not dup'd by party, nor opinion's slave,
Those faculties which bounteous nature gave,
Thy honest spirit into practice brings,

Nor courts the smile, nor dreads the frown of kings.
Let rude licentious Englishmen comply
With tumult's voice, and curse they know not why;
Unwilling to condemn, thy soul disdains
To wear vile faction's arbitrary chains,
And rictly weighs, in apprehension clear,
Thiri as they are, and not as they appear.

With thee good-humour tempers lively wit;
Enthron'd with judgment, candour loves to sit;
And nature gave thee, open to distress,
A heart to pity, and a hand to bless.

Oft have I heard thee mourn the wretched lot Of the poor, mean, despis'd, insulted Scot, Who, might calm reason credit idle tales By rancour forg'd where prejudice prevails, Or starves at home, or practises, through fear Of starving, arts which damn all conscience here. When scribblers, to the charge by int'rest led, The fierce North-Briton foaming at their head, Pour forth invectives, deaf to candour's call, And injur❜d by one alien, rail at all; On Northern Pisgah when they take their stand, To mark the weakness of that holy land, With needless truths their libels to adorn, And hang a nation up to public scorn; Thy gen'rous soul condemns the frantic rage, And hates the faithful but ill-natur'd page.

The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride; True is the charge, nor by themselves deny'd. Are they not then in strictest reason clear, Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here? If, by low supple arts successful grown, They sapp'd our vigour to increase their own, If, mean in want, and insolent in pow'r, They only fawn'd more surely to devour, Rous'd by such wrongs should reason take alarm, And e'en the Muse for public safety arm; But if they own ingenuous virtue's sway, And follow where true honour points the way, If they revere the hand by which they're fed, And bless the donors for their daily bread, Or by vast debts of higher import bound, Are always humble, always grateful found; If they, directed by Paul's holy pen, Become discreetly all things to all men, That all men may become all things to them; Envy may hate, but justice can't condemn. "Into our places, states, and beds they creep ;" They've sense to get, what we want sense to keep. Once, be the hour accurs'd, accurs'd the place, I ventur'd to blaspheme the chosen race. Into those traps, which men call'd patriots laid, By specious arts unwarily betray'd, Madly I leagu'd against that sacred earth, Vile parricide! which gave a parent birth. But shall I meanly error's path pursue, When heavenly truth presents her friendly clue? Once plung'd in ill, shall I go farther in? To make the oath was rash; to keep it, sin. Backward I tread the paths I trod before, And calm reflection hates what passion swore. Converted (blessed are the souls which know Those pleasures which from true conversion flow, Whether to reason, who now rules my breast, Or to pure faith, like Lyttleton and West), Past crimes to expiate, be my present aim To raise new trophies to the Scottish name, To make (what can the proudest Muse do more?) E'en faction's sons her brighter worth adore,