To-night a trembling Juliet fills the Scene, Fearful as young, and really not Eighteen; Cold Icy Fear, like an untimely frost, Lies on her mind, and all her powers are loft. 'Tis your's alone to diffipate her fears, To calm her troubled foul, and dry her tears. Bit with the cank'ring Eaft, the infant rose Its full-blown honours never can difclofe: Oh, may no envious Blast, no Critick Blight, Fall on the Tender Plant we rear to-night! So fhall it thrive, and in fome genial hour, The opening Bud may prove a beauteous Flower, PROLOGUE PROLOGUE TO THE COMEDY OF THE SISTER, Author of the FEMALE QUIXOTE, A Novel. February, 1769. HE Law of Cuftom is the Law of Fools T1 And yet the wife are govern'd by her rules. Whofe tongues are loud, and gen'ral as the wind? Boaft not your gallant deeds, romantick men! Ye Ye that in this Enchanted Castle fit, Dames, 'Squires, and dark Magicians of the Pit, Smile on our fair Knight Errantry to-day, And raise no spells to blaft a Female Play! Oft has our Author, upon other ground, Plac'd at the threshold of the Weather-house, There ftands a Pafteboard Husband, and his Spoufe, Each doom'd to mark the changes of the Weather, But ftill-true Man and Wife! ne'er feen together. When low'ring clouds the face of Heav'n deform, The muffled Hufband ftands and braves the storm; But when the fury of the tempeft's done, Break out at once the Lady and the Sun. Thus oft has Man, in Cuftom's beaten track, With omens of foul weather in his face. VOL. III. R Trick'd Trick'd out in filks and fmiles let me appear, PROLOGUE TO THE ROMAN FATHER, Acted at the Theatre at Bristol, on Friday, July 14, 1769. WHEN fancied forrows wake the Player's art, A fhort-liv'd anguish seizes on the heart: Tears, real tears he fheds, feels real pain; When the fad tear from home-felt forrow flows: Where'er Where'er I tread, where'er I turn my eyes, Can I forget, that from our earliest age, His firft great pride-to be approv'd by You? Soft as the ftream yon facred springs impart, |