Poems upon Several Occasions/77
Epilogue to the Jew of Venice.
EACH in his turn, the Poet,[1] and the Priest,[2]
Have view'd the Stage, but like false Prophets guest:
The Man of Zeal, in his Religious Rage,
Wou'd silence Poets, and reduce the Stage.
The Poet, rashly to get clear, retorts
On Kings the Scandal, and bespatters Courts.
Both err: For, without mincing, to be plain,
The Guilt's your own, of every odious Scene.
The present Time still gives the Stage its Mode:
The Vices that you practise, we explode:
We hold the Glass, and but reflect your Shame,
Like Spartans, by exposing, to reclaim.
The Scribler, pinch'd with Hunger, writes to dine,
And to your Genius must conform his Line;
Not lewd by Choice, but meerly to submit;
Wou'd you encourage Sense, Sense would be writ.
Good Plays we try, which after the first Day
Unseen we act, and to bare Benches play;
Plain Sense, which pleas'd your Sires an Age ago,
Is lost, without the Garniture of Show.
At vast Expence, we labour to our Ruin,
And court your Favour, with our own Undoing;
A War of Profit mitigates the Evil,
But to be tax'd———and beaten———is the Devil.
How was the Scene forlorn, and how despis'd,
When Timon without Musick, moraliz'd;
Shakespear's Sublime in vain entic'd the Throng,
Without the Aid of Purcell's Siren Song.
In the same antique Loom these Scenes were wrought,
Embellish'd with good Morals and just Thought,
True Nature in her nobles Light you see,
Ere yet debauch'd by modern Gallantry
To trifling Jests, and fulsome Ribaldry:
What Rust remains upon the shining Mass,
Antiquity must privilege to pass.
'Tis Shakespear's Play, and if these Scenes miscarry,
Let [3]Gorman take the Stage———or [4]Lady Mary.
