Where, then, shall Hope and Fear their objects find? 
  Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? 
  Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,
  Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? 
  Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,
  No cries invoke the mercies of the skies? 
  Inquirer, cease! petitions yet remain,
  Which Heaven may hear, nor deem Religion vain. 350
  Still raise for good the supplicating voice,
  But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice;
  Safe in His power, whose eyes discern afar
  The secret ambush of a specious prayer,
  Implore His aid, in His decisions rest,
  Secure whate’er He gives, He gives the best. 
  Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires,
  And strong devotion to the skies aspires,
  Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind,
  Obedient passions, and a will resign’d; 360
  For love, which scarce collective man can fill;
  For patience, sovereign o’er transmuted ill;
  For faith, that, panting for a happier seat,
  Counts death kind Nature’s signal of retreat: 
  These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain,
  These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain;
  With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,
  And makes the happiness she does not find.

[Footnote 1:  ‘Bacon:’  Friar, whose study was to fall when a wiser man than he entered it]

[Footnote 2:  ‘Lydiat:’  a learned divine, who spent many of his days in prison for debt; he lived in Charles the First’s time.]

[Footnote 3:  ‘Bavarian:’  Charles Albert, who aspired to the empire of Austria against Maria Theresa—­but was baffled.]

[Footnote 4:  ‘Lydia’s monarch:’  Croesus.]

[Footnote 5:  Vane:  ’Lady Vane, a celebrated courtezan; her memoirs are in ‘Peregrine Pickle.’]

[Footnote 6:  ‘Sedley:’  mistress of James II.]

* * * * *

PROLOGUE

  SPOKEN BY MR GARRICK, AT THE OPENING OF THE
  THEATRE-ROYAL DRURY-LANE, 1747.

  When Learning’s triumph o’er her barbarous foes
  First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose;
  Each change of many-colour’d life he drew,
  Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new: 
  Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
  And panting Time toil’d after him in vain;
  His powerful strokes presiding Truth impress’d,
  And unresisted Passion storm’d the breast.

   Then Jonson came, instructed from the school,
  To please in method, and invent by rule; 10
  His studious patience and laborious art,
  By regular approach essay’d the heart: 
  Cold Approbation gave the lingering bays,
  For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise;
  A mortal born, he met the general doom,
  But left, like Egypt’s kings, a lasting tomb.