WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR OF THE TRAGEDY.

SPOKEN BY MR. HULL.

Our modern poets now can scarcely choose
A subject worthy of the Tragic Muse;
For bards so well have glean'd th' historic field,
That scarce one sheaf th' exhausted ancients yield;
Or if, perchance, they from the golden crop
Some grains, with hand penurious, rarely drop;
Our author these consigns to manly toil,
For classic themes demand a classic soil,
A vagrant she, the desert waste who chose,
Where Truth and History no restraints impose.
To her the wilds of fiction open lie,
A flow'ry prospect, and a boundless sky;
Yet hard the task to keep the onward way,
Where the wide scenery lures the foot to stray;
Where no severer limits check the Muse,
Than lawless fancy is dispos'd to choose.
Nor does she emulate the loftier strains
Which high heroic Tragedy maintains:
Nor conquests she, nor wars, nor triumphs sings,
Nor with rash hand o'erturns the thrones of kings.
No ruin'd empires greet to night your eyes,
No nations at our bidding fall or rise;
To statesmen deep, to politicians grave,
These themes congenial to their tastes we leave.
Of crowns and camps, a kingdom's weal or woe,
How few can judge, because how few can know!
But here you all may boast the censor's art;
Here all are critics who possess a heart.
Of the mix'd passions we display to-night,
Each hearer judges like the Stagyrite.
The scenes of private life our author shows,
A simple story of domestic woes;
Nor unimportant is the glass we hold,
To show th' effect of passions uncontroll'd;
To govern empires is the lot of few,
But all who live have passions to subdue.
Self-conquest is the lesson books should preach,
Self-conquest is the theme the Stage should teach.
Vouchsafe to learn this obvious duty here,
The verse though feeble, yet the moral's clear.
O mark to-night the unexampled woes
Which from unbounded self-indulgence flows.
Your candour once endur'd our author's lays,
Endure them now—it will be ample praise.