Prest by the load of life, the weary mind
Surveys the gen’ral toil of human kind;
With cool submission joins the lab’ring train,
And social sorrow loses half its pain: 
Our anxious bard, without complaint, may share
This bustling season’s epidemick care;
Like Caesar’s pilot, dignify’d by fate,
Tost in one common storm with all the great;
Distrest alike the statesman and the wit,
When one a borough courts, and one the pit. 
The busy candidates for pow’r and fame
Have hopes, and fears, and wishes, just the same;
Disabled both to combat or to fly,
Must hear all taunts, and hear without reply. 
Uncheck’d on both loud rabbles vent their rage,
As mongrels bay the lion in a cage. 
Th’ offended burgess hoards his angry tale,
For that blest year, when all that vote may rail;
Their schemes of spite the poet’s foes dismiss,
Till that glad night, when all that hate may hiss. 
“This day the powder’d curls and golden coat,”
Says swelling Crispin, “begg’d a cobbler’s vote.” 
“This night our wit,” the pert apprentice cries,
“Lies at my feet; I hiss him, and he dies.” 
The great, ‘tis true, can charm th’ electing tribe;
The bard may supplicate, but cannot bribe. 
Yet, judg’d by those whose voices ne’er were sold,
He feels no want of ill persuading gold;
But, confident of praise, if praise be due,
Trusts, without fear, to merit and to you.

PROLOGUE
TO THE COMEDY OF A WORK TO THE WISE[a]
SPOKEN BY MR. HULL.

This night presents a play, which publick rage,
Or right, or wrong, once hooted from the stage[b]. 
From zeal or malice, now, no more we dread,
For English vengeance wars not with the dead. 
A gen’rous foe regards, with pitying eye,
The man whom fate has laid, where all must lie. 
To wit, reviving from its author’s dust,
Be kind, ye judges, or at least be just. 
For no renew’d hostilities invade
Th’ oblivious grave’s inviolable shade. 
Let one great payment ev’ry claim appease;
And him, who cannot hurt, allow to please;
To please by scenes, unconscious of offence,
By harmless merriment, or useful sense. 
Where aught of bright, or fair, the piece displays,
Approve it only—­’tis too late to praise. 
If want of skill, or want of care appear,
Forbear to hiss—­the poet cannot hear. 
By all, like him, must praise and blame be found,
At best a fleeting gleam, or empty sound. 
Yet, then, shall calm reflection bless the night,
When lib’ral pity dignify’d delight;
When pleasure fir’d her torch at virtue’s flame,
And mirth was bounty with an humbler name.

[a] Performed at Covent garden theatre in 1777, for the benefit of Mrs.
    Kelly, widow of Hugh Kelly, esq. (the author of the play,) and her
    children.

[b] Upon the first representation of this play, 1770, a party assembled
    to damn it, and succeeded.