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 conquest 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 we.
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.
And of the 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 the effect of passions uncontroll'd;
For if to govern realms belong to few,
Yet 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.