Have banished long the pleasures of the stage;
From the gay painted scene compell'd to part,
(Forget the melting of the heart)
Constrained to shun the bold theatric show,
To act long tragedies of real woe,
Heroes once more attend the comic muse;
Forget our failings, and our faults excuse.
In that fine language is our fable drest
Which still unrivall'd reigns o'er all the rest;
Of foreign courts the study and the pride,