'I don't very well understand what it's all about,' said my uncle. 'I won't say I didn't drop into a doze while the young man was drivelling through his latter soliloquies. But there was a great deal that was unmeaning, vague, ...
What shall we do for Love these days? How shall we make an altar-blaze To smite the horny eyes of men With the renown of our Heaven, And to the unbelievers prove Our service to our dear god, Love?...
One Morn as through Hyde Park we walk'd. My friend and I, by chance we talk'd Of Lessing's famed Laoco'n; And after we awhile had gone In Lessing's track, and tried to see What painting is, what poetry,...
You've seen a pair of faithful lovers die: And much you care; for most of you will cry, 'Twas a just judgment on their constancy. For, heaven be thank'd, we live in such an age,...
What Sophocles could undertake alone, Our poets found a work for more than one; And therefore two lay tugging at the piece, With all their force, to draw the ponderous mass from Greece;...
Well, having stoop'd to conquer with success, And gain'd a husband without aid from dress, Still, as a Bar-maid, I could wish it too, As I have conquer'd him, to conquer you:...
Between the wave-ridge and the strand I let you forth in sight of land, Songs that with storm-crossed wings and eyes Strain eastward till the darkness dies; Let signs and beacons fall or stand,...
As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure; Thus on the stage, our play-wrights still depend For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend,...
Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit, So trembles a young Poet at a full pit. Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear, And wonders how the devil he durst come there;...
To all and singular in this full meeting, Ladies and gallants, Phoebus sends ye greeting. To all his sons, by whate'er title known, Whether of court, or coffee-house, or town;...
You see what shifts we are enforced to try, To help out wit with some variety; Shows may be found that never yet were seen, 'Tis hard to find such wit as ne'er has been:...
Most modern wits such monstrous fools have shown, They seem not of Heaven's making, but their own. Those nauseous harlequins in farce may pass; But there goes more to a substantial ass:...
Perhaps the parson[1] stretch'd a point too far, When with our Theatres he waged a war. He tells you, that this very moral age Received the first infection from the stage....
They who have best succeeded on the stage, Have still conform'd their genius to their age. Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show, When men were dull, and conversation low....
What! five long acts and all to make us wiser! Our authoress sure has wanted an adviser. Had she consulted 'me', she should have made Her moral play a speaking masquerade;...
Of all dramatic writing, comic wit, As 'tis the best, so 'tis most hard to hit, For it lies all in level to the eye, Where all may judge, and each defect may spy. Humour is that which every day we meet,...