Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring;
And Sedley curs'd the form that pleas'd a king.
Ye nymphs of rosy lips and radiant eyes,
Whom Pleasure keeps too busy to be wise;
Whom joys with soft varieties invite,

By day the frolic, and the dance by night;
Who frown with vanity, who smile with art,

And ask the latest fashion of the heart;

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What care, what rules, your heedless charms shall save,

Each nymph your rival, and each youth your slave 330
Against your fame with fondness hate combines,
The rival batters, and the lover mines.

With distant voice neglected Virtue calls,

Less heard and less, the faint remonstrance falls;
Tir'd with contempt, she quits the slipp'ry reign,
And Pride and Prudence take her seat in vain.
In crowd at once, where none the pass defend,
The harmless freedom and the private friend.
The guardians yield, by force superior ply'd:
To Int'rest, Prudence; and to Flatt'ry, Pride.
Here Beauty falls betray'd, despis'd, distress'd,
And hissing infamy proclaims the rest.

335

340

Where then shall Hope and Fear their objects find?

Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind?

Must helpless man, in ignorance. sedate,

345

Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?

Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,

No cries invoke the mercies of the skies?
Enquirer, cease; petitions yet remain

Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain.
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,

350

But leave to Heav'n the measure and the choice.

Safe in his pow'r whose eyes discern afar
The secret ambush of a specious pray'r;
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 fervors for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resign'd;

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360

For love, which scarce collective man can fill;

For patience, sov'reign 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 Heav'n ordain,

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These goods he grants, who grants the pow'r to gain;

With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.

Prologue

SPOKEN BY MR. GARRICK

AT THE OPENING OF

THE THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, 1747

WHEN Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes
First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;
Each change of many-color'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
His pow'rful strokes presiding Truth impress'd,
And unresisted Passion storm'd the breast.

5

Then Jonson came, instructed from the school,
To please in method, and invent by rule;
His studious patience and laborious art,
By regular approach assail'd the heart:
Cold Approbation gave the ling'ring bays,

For those who durst not censure scarce could praise.
A mortal born, he met the gen'ral doom,

15

But left, like Egypt's kings a lasting tomb.

The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame,

Nor wish'd for Jonson's art, or Shakespeare's flame.
Themselves they studied, as they felt they writ;

Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit.

20

Vice always found a sympathetic friend;

They pleas'd their age, and did not aim to mend.

Yet bards like these aspir'd to lasting praise,

And proudly hoped to pimp in future days.

Their cause was gen'ral, their supports were strong,
Their slaves were willing, and their reign was long:
Till Shame regain'd the post that Sense betray'd,

25

And Virtue call'd Oblivion to her aid.

Then, crush'd by rules, and weaken'd as refin'd,
For years the power of Tragedy declin'd;
From bard to bard the frigid caution crept,
Till Declamation roar'd whilst Passion slept;
Yet still did Virtue deign the stage to tread,
Philosophy remain'd, though Nature fled,
But forc'd, at length, her ancient reign to quit,
She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of Wit;
Exulting Folly hail'd the joyful day,
And Pantomime and Song confirm'd her sway.
But who the coming changes can presage,
And mark the future periods of the Stage?
Perhaps, if skill could distant times explore,
New Behns, new Durfeys, yet remain in store;
Perhaps where Lear has rav'd, and Hamlet died,
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride:
Perhaps (for who can guess th' effects of chance?)
Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance.
Hard is his lot that here by Fortune plac'd,
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;
With ev'ry meteor of caprice must play,
And chase the new-blown bubbles of the day.
Ah! let not Censure term our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the public voice;
The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live.
Then prompt no more the follies you decry,
As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die;
'Tis Yours, this night, to bid the reign commence
Of rescued Nature and reviving Sense;

To chase the charms of Sound, the pomp of Show,

For useful Mirth and salutary Woe;

60

Bid scenic Virtue form the rising age,

And Truth diffuse her radiance from the stage.

PREFATORY NOTE ON THE DICTIONARY.

NONE of Johnson's works yielded him such return of fame as his Dictionary. He began it in 1747, the year before publishing his Vanity of Human Wishes, and it was published in 1755. He had expected to finish the enormous task in three years, and, after it was done, said that he had taken longer than was necessary. But it suffered many interruptions. During two of these years he wrote two essays a week of about twelve hundred words each for The Rambler. Following this came his distracting grief at the death of his wife; and no doubt the work suffered occasional lapses from his natural dilatoriness. As it is, one may wonder at the brief time in which the Dictionary was written. Johnson says that he enjoyed the work, though it was harder than writing poetry. He was accustomed to speak of it with good-natured disparagement, and defined a lexicographer as a harmless drudge.'

In undertaking the task he contracted with the booksellers for £1575. Out of this he was to pay six amanuenses, and provide materials and a workshop. Five of these assistants, as it happened, were Scotchmen, and most of them wretchedly poor. Johnson never failed in his kindness to these men, and in later days more than one of them was relieved by his charity. He received his money in small amounts during the progress of the work, and, on one occasion when it was not forthcoming, he threatened a strike, which brought his employers to terms. He spent the money carefully, and yet at the publication of the book the £1575 was gone, and in the following year, 1756, he was arrested and imprisoned for debt. His friend Richardson, the novelist, relieved him.

It was evidently the publishers' desire that the Dictionary should gain what it could from a dedication to Lord Chesterfield; he was the arbiter elegantiarum of the times,