PROLOGUE

Wars, cruel wars, and hostile Britain's rage

Have banished long the pleasures of the stage;

From the gay painted scene compelled to part,

( Forgot the melting language 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 unrivalled, reigns o'er all the rest;

Of foreign courts the study and the pride,

Who to know this abandon all beside;

Bold, though polite, and ever sure to please;

Correct with grace, and elegant with ease;

Soft from the lips its easy accents roll,

Formed to delight and captivate the soul:

In this Eugenia tells her easy lay,

The brilliant work of courtly Beaumarchais:

In this Racine, Voltaire, and Boileau sung,

The noblest poets in the noblest tongue.

If the soft story in our play expressed

Can give a moment's pleasure to your breast,

To you, Great Men,we must be proud to say

That moment's pleasure shall our pains repay:

Returned from conquest and from glorious toils,

From armies captured and unnumbered spoils;

Ere yet again, with generous France allied,

You rush to battle, humbling British pride;

While arts of peace your kind protection share,

O let the Muses claim an equal care.

You bade us first our future greatness see,

Inspired by you, we languished to be free;

Even here where Freedom lately sat distrest,

See, a new Athens rising in the west!

Fair science blooms, where tyrants reigned before,

Red war, reluctant, leaves our ravaged shore —

Illustrious heroes, may you live to see

These new Republics powerful, great, and free;

Peace, heaven born peace, o'er spacious regions spread,

While discord, sinking, veils her ghastly head.