EPISTLE VIII. THE STAGE. то JOSEPH ADDISON, ESQ. FROM MR. WEBSTER, OF CHRIST-CHURCH, Oxford. SINCE all the din of war begins to cease, Where Mars still rages in the Poet's lines, Nor wave in echoes frightful to the shore; Where the shrill trumpet's clangor charms the ear, And beauteous circles, without trembling, hear The loud-mouth'd thunder of a fancied war; If by an unfeign'd wound some hero dies, Love shoots the guilty darts from their too murderous eyes. Epist. VIII. EPISTLES CRITICAL, &c. 87 Nigh where, as when on Naseby's fatal plains, A convent once (if we may credit Fame, At length the world broke-in, and now the Player Attracts the Beau, the Critic, and the Fair; Ev'n in the place which once the Monk possess'd (Strange shift of scenes!) fat Dominic's the jest. Sweet is the florish when the curtain draws, Sweet is the crowded theatre's applause ; Sweet are the strains when billing Lovers parle, But rough the cat-call and the Critic's snarl. Rough was the language, unadorn'd the stage, And mean his hero's dress in Shakspere's age: No scepter'd Kings in royal robes were seen, Scarce could her guard defend their tinsel'd Queen, Scarce could the house contain the listening shoal, Here wreath'd Apollo with his heavenly lyre The God, with pleasing looks and crowns of bays, Here have I seen (and oh the pleasing sight!) Whilst he whom conscious Innocence secures, Unless when Virtue wrongs or scorn endures, Smiles unconcern'd, as Socrates is said T' have sat at Athens when the Clouds were play'd. His judgment great, and great must be his craft, Nothing can more provoke a righteous spleen Religion is for plays too great a theme, Let those who dare attempt the Tragic Muse, Some standard author for their pattern choose; The man who Nature reconciles with Art, Who knows each pass, each folding of the heart, Who tyrannizes o'er the soul, is he: Such Shakspere was, such Addison will be. Such Shakspere was indeed; for who can guard His inmost soul, when Shakspere plies it hard? Can he that has a child, an only child, As Hotspur headstrong, and as Falstaff wild, See Bolingbroke in anguish for his son, See the king's sorrows, and forget his own? And can that child behold Lear's good old age, All dropping wet, come frantic on the stage, Or hear that impious pair his daughters play'd, Yet not his own ingratitude upbraid? He must, he must, 'tis Shakspere reprimands; What guilt so bold his pious pen withstands? All hail, immortal Bard! thy Muse disarms Each vice, and even when a slattern charms. Thou canst celestial sentiments express, Or necromantic rites in all their horrors dress, So the fam❜d God of Eloquence (who smil'd On thy great birth, and chose thee for his child) In either region's language did excell, At once th' interpreter of Heaven and Hell. |