PROLOGUE TO CATO.

To wake the foul by tender strokes of art,

To raise the genius and to mend the heart;

To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,

Live o'er each scene and be what they behold ;-
For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age:
Tyrants no more their favage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.

Our Author fhuns by vulgar springs to move

The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;

In pitying love we but our weakness shew,

And wild ambition well deferves its woe.

Here tears fhall flow from a more generous cause,

Such tears as patriots fhed for dying laws :

He bids

your breasts with antient ardour rise,

And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.

Virtue confefs'd in human shape he draws;

What PLATO thought, and godlike CATO was:
No common object to your fight displays,

But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys;
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state!

While CATO gives his little senate laws,

What bofom beats not in his country's cause?

Who fees him act, but envies every deed ?

Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed? Even when proud CÆSAR 'midst triumphal cars,

The spoils of nations and the pomp of wars,

Ignobly vain and impotently great,

Shew'd Rome her CATO's figure drawn in state;

As her dead father's reverend image pass'd,

The pomp was darken'd and the day o'ercast;

Fudit pro patriâ ruente, Nofter

Educit lacrymas; furore prifco

Accenditque animos, genamque guttis

Romanis docet imbui Britannam.

Virtus fcilicet hic videnda formâ

Humanâ! Hic PLATO mente quod creavit,

CATO quod fuit! En, quod ipfe Divûm

Rex spectaculum amaverit, procellis
Luctantem patriæ virum ; cadentemque,
Hæc cum concideret! Suis CATONEM
Dantem jura, quis haud amore flagrat,

Ut vidit, patriæ ? quis haud agenti
Plaudit? quis fimul et mori, gementem
Quicunque audiît, haud avet? Triumphat

Dum CESAR fpolia inter, atque victos

Oftentat populo duces (fuperbæ

Heu! mentis nimiùm impotenfque faftûs)

Turba ut fortè fui CATONIS ire

The triumph ceas'd: Tears gufh'd from every eye;

The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by:

Her laft good man dejected Rome ador'd,

And honour'd CÆSAR's lefs than CATO's fword.

Britons, attend: Be worth like this approv'd,

And fhew

you have the virtue to be mov'd.

With honeft fcorn the firft fam'd CATO view'd

Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdued ;

Our scene precariously fubfifts too long

On French translation and Italian fong:

Dare to have sense yourselves. Affert the ftage;