Excerpt from Cheap Living: A Comedy, in Five Acts, as It Is Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane
From the Stagyrite fam"d, as a critic profound,
To the carpers who now in our island abound,
It has still been allow"d that to write a good play,
Is a task somewhat hard, whether solemn of gay.
Such indeed was the case when the world was but young,
And from Nature"s rough hand bold originals sprung;
"Ere the polish of manners had levell"d each class,
And strong featur"d character mark"d the whose mass.
Yet a dramatist then, from examples so rise,
Need but just look abroad and take copies from life.
But mankind, since those days, have been sketch"d o"er and o"er,
And the Stage can but give what it gave you before.
Nay, one mighty genius, with wonderful art
Pervaded our nature, and ransack"d the heart;
Hence the works from his hand are so vivid and true,
That Time can but merely retouch what he drew.
After such a description, if Shakspeare we name,
"Tis but saying what time shall for ever proclaim.
And has shewn each degree thro" the marvellous space
"Twixt the sage and the fop, and the good and the base,
A dramatist now can but hold up his glass,
And simply exhibit the times as they pass;
Content to pick up, as he saunters along,
Some anomalous beings, that start from the throng;
And such, we presume, to bring forward to-night:
But our bard aims at no individual in spite;
He draws from the species, and thinks he may say,
You may find of such being a tribe every day.
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