case,

Will make our metre flat and bare As Hebrew verse of bishop Hare: Add, that regard to rhyme is gone, And verse and prose will be all one; Or, what is worse, create a pother By species neither one nor t'other: which there is room to fear From dupes of Aristippus here— The fancied sage, in feign'd retreat, Laughs at the follies of the great With wit, invention, fancy, humour, Enough to gain the thing a rumour; But if he writes resolv'd to shine In unconfin'd and motley line, Let him Pindaric it away, And quit the lazy labour'd lay; Leave to La Farre and to La France, The warbling, soothing nonchalance. When will our bards unlearn at last The puny style, and the bombast? Nor let the pitiful extremes Disgrace the verse of English themes; Matter, no more, in manner paint Foppish, affected, queer, and quaint; Nor bounce above Parnassian ground, To drop the sense, and catch the sound: Except-in writing for the stage, Where sound is best for buskin'd rage; Except-in operas, where sense Is but superfluous expense: Be then the bards of sounding pitch Consign'd to Garrick and to Rich; To Tweedledums and Tweedledees, The singy songing Euterpees.

EPILOGUE

TO HURLOTHRUMBO, OR THE SUPERNATURAL'.

Enter Hurlothrumbo.

LADIES and gentlemen, my lord of Flame
Has sent me here to thank you in his name;
Proud of your smiles, he's mounted many a story
Above the tip-top pinnacle of glory:
Thence he defies the sons of clay, the critics;
Fellows," says he, "that are mere paralytics,
With judgments lame, and intellects that halt,
Because a man outruns them-they find fault."
He is indeed, to speak my poor opinion,
Out of the reach of critical dominion.

Enter Critic.

Adso! here's one of 'em.→

This play was written by Mr. Samuel Johnson, a dancing master, of Cheshire, and performed in the year 1722, at the Little Theatre, in the Haymarket, where it had a run of above thirty nights. We must refer the reader to the piece itself, to give him a just idea of the humour and propriety of the following epilogue; which was written by our author, with a friendly intention to point out to Mr. Johnson the extravagance and absurdity of his play. Mr. Johnson, however, so far from perceiving the ridicule, received it as a compliment, and had it both spoken and printed.

Au. Wants what? why now, for all your cantWhat one ingredient of a play is wanting? [ing, Music, love, war, death, madness without sham, Done to the life by persons of the dram: Scenes and machines, descending and arising; Thunder and lightning; ev'ry thing surprising! Cr. Play, farce, or opera, is't?

Au. No matter whether 'Tis a rehearsal of 'em all together. But come, sir, come, troop off, ald Blundermonger, And interrupt the Epilogue no longer.

Hurlo, proceed.[Author drives the Critic off the stage.

Hurlo. Troth! he says true enough, The stage has given rise to wretched stuff: Critic or player; a Dennis or a Cibber, Vie only which shall make it go down glibber; A thousand murd'rous ways they cast about To stifle it but murder like-'twill out. Our author fairly, without so much fuss, Shows it-in puris naturalibus; Pursues the point beyond its highest height, Then bids his men of fire, and ladies bright, Mark how it looks! when it is out of sight. So true a stage, so fair a play for laughter, There never was before, nor ever will come

after:

Never, no never; not while vital breath
Defends ye from that long-liv'd mortal, Death.
Death!-something hangs on my prophetic
tongue,

I'll give it utterance-be it right or wrong:
Handel himself shall yield to Hurlothrumbo,
And Bononcini too shall cry-"Succumbo."
That's if the ladies condescend to smile;
Their looks make sense or nonsense in our isle.

Cut off at once miraculous supply;
All healing ceases when apostles die:
No tongue inspir'd, no demon dispossest;
With them the working spirit went to rest:
Forgot the prophecies that Christ had made,
And left believers without signal aid:
Although no limit, in what scripture saith,
Be put to miracles, but want of faith;
Although, without one, foolish to pretend
To know their nature, or to fix their end;
Yet if a daring genius advertise

That all but scripture miracles are lies,

210

What crowds embrace the new belief, and hope!
It suits their taste - and saves them from the pope.
Others contend that wond'rous gifts survive
The first three centuries-or four or five.
Then, sir, they close their jealous, partial view,
And grudge diviner influence its due:
Take diff'rent stations in the doctor's track,
Blaming, and backing his more close attack;
All miracles, beyond his earlier fence,
Are want of honesty, or want of sense:
All faith in bishops, confessors, and saints,
Who witness facts, a Christian priest recants:
They must-he says they must-be fables all,
That pass the bounds of his gigantic wall.

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Such strange delusion if a man embrace, Without some voice, some miracle of grace, It is in vain, to reas'ners of his cast, To urge the evidence of ages past: With minds resolv'd to disbelieve, or doubt, Small is the force of history throughout. Freedom of thought exerted, and of will, To claim the privilege of judging ill, Prophets, apostles, martyrs cannot move, Nor holy church, throughout the world, disprove. But to return-how does his first assault On miracles defend a second fault! Or rabbies, or rabbinical divines,

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240

Help Lightfoot's comment, or his own designs!
Lightfoot, without detracting from his skill,
Wrote, in this instance, with a careless quill:
Such inf'rence else had never been annext;
He must have seen that the apostles text
Could not, with reason either good or great,
Compare the prophets with a dev'lish cheat.
This learned writer, sir, did not attend
To Peter's meaning, or not apprehend;
Or, if excuse may for his haste atone,
He did not well, perhaps, express his own.
Since, by his present citer here, you see
How quite forgetful learned men may
be:
For after all the scraps he had amass'd,
And this triumphant inference at last:

The text," he says, "had, in St. Peter's views, No ref'rence to himself-but to the Jews 7." 250

7 P. 53. "Yet St. Peter's words, after all, as they are expounded by the freethinking author above mentioned, do not necessarily imply him to mean, that prophecy was a surer argument to himself, than the voice from Heaven, but to the Jewish converts in general, who did not hear that voice, but received it only from the reports of others. It was not his view in this epistle to declare what sort of arguments was the most convincing to himself, but to propose such as were most worthy of the attention of those to whom he was writing."-P. 54. "When St. Peter therefore says, we have a more sure word of prophecy:

Do but observe the point in question, sir, On which the doctor makes this learned stir; How he, who talks of " its perpetual change By others," takes the liberty to range:

When a comparison was judg'd absurd,
Peter could make no other, was the word;
Then by a contradiction plain and flat,
Peter's comparison could not be that;
And then again,-supposing that it could,
Thus he attempts to make the matter good.
"Let Peter be himself assur'd," says he,
"As fully as 'twas possible to be,
Of ev'ry circumstance that past; he might
Have still prefer d the old prophetic light:
This was a standing evidence, and lay
Open to cool delib'rate reason's sway;
A firmer argument, that brought along
Conviction, sir, more permanent and strong, 253
To men of sober senses, and sedate,

Than could the vision which his words relate."
Set the perplex'd equivocation by
"That's here involv'd," how easy the reply
To reasons void, if we distinguish right
Betwixt a real, and reported sight:
For be the proof, that prophecies procure,
More to the Jews comparatively sure,
As oft the text is commented upon,
(Thro' a mistake, as will appear anon)
Yet his conviction vacates the pretence
Of reason, argument, and sober sense;
Because the prophets, here to be compar'd,
As evidences of what God declar'd,
Could but originally hear and see;
And be as fully satisfy'd as he.

The use of reason has, I apprehend,
When full assurance is attain'd, an end:
When we are certain that we see, and hear,
And ev'ry circumstance is plain, and clear,

the occasion of his words oblige us to interpret them, as spoken, not with any particular re ference to himself, but to the general body of the Jewish converts."

P. 62. "And thus the apostle's sense, as it is expounded by the author, (Collins) is clear and consistent, not liable to any exception but what flows from that perplexity, in which his lordship has involved it by his use of equivocal terms, and perpetual change of the point in question."

P. 52. "Let Peter be as perfectly assured, as we can suppose him to be of every circumstance, which passed in the Mount, he might still take prophecy, considered as a standing evidence, always lying open to the cool and deliberate examination of reason to be a firmer argument on the whole, and to carry a more permanent cosviction with it to the sober senses of men, than the vision with which he here compares it,”

What can examination teach, or learn?
By what criterion, sir, shall we discern,
When reason comes to be so deadly cool,
The sage deliberator from the fool?

Couceive St. Peter, if you can, entic'd
(Eye-witness of the majesty of Christ;
Of what the Father, in the Mount, had done
By showing forth the glory of the Son)
To disbelieve his senses, and to pore
Some ancient standing evidences o'er;
To see if that, which, on the holy spot,

He saw and heard, was seen and heard, or not:
Would such a cool deliberating plan
Have made him pass for a more sober man?
If so, then Middleton has hit the white;
Sherlock, if not, is thus far in the right;
And well may say that no man, in his wits,
Could be attack'd by such cold reas'ning fits.
Buthus the frigid argument is brought,
Why Peter might, in full persuaded thought,
Prefer predictions in the ancient law

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320

To what himself most surely heard, and saw:
"For, after all the full convincing scene,
Which he had witness'd, how did he demean?-
With faith infirm, he shamefully deny'd
His Master, seen so greatly glorify'd'."

Yes; so he did-and gave an bumbling stroke
To human confidence in reason's cloak:
Enough to lay all syllogizing trust
In bare conclusions only in the dust;
An ample proof that, in a trying hour,
Ev'n demonstration loses all its pow'r;
That, without grace, and God's assisting hand,
In time of need, no evidence can stand.

Suppose a person of the clearest head,
In logic arts well grounded, and well read;
If, with a selfish love to truth, alone,
He arm himself with weapons all his own,
When a temptation comes-alas! how soon
The valiant reas'ner turns a mere poltroon!
Peter, tho' void of learning, and of art,
Had a courageous, had an honest heart;
Had natural abilities, beyond

340

[bold:

All those of which the critics are so fond:
Had hidden qualities, beyond their ken;
They fish for words he was to fish for men.
His faith, in outward evidence, was such
That Peter trusted to himself too much:
When his denial plainly was foretold,
What should have humbled made him grow more
"Tho all should be offended-yet not I-
Not death itself shall tempt me to deny."
We see in him, sir, what the utmost height
Of boasted reason, evidence, and light,
Of courage, honesty, and even love
Could do, without assistance from above:
It could to humbler thoughts resist the call;
It proudly could prefer itself to all:
It could, in short, upon conclusions true,
Do all that numbers upon false ones do;
Rest on itself, be confident and bounce;
And, when the call to suff'ring came-renounce.
As human resolution, courage, skill,
Conviction, evidence, or what you will,

360

P. 56. "For after all the convictions which he himself had received from it, we know, that bis faith was still so infirm, as to betray him into a Shameful denial of his Master, whom he had seen so wonderfully glorified."

Can, in their nature, only reach so far
As things are subject to an human bar;
All these, tho' actuating Peter's zeal,
To Christian doctrine could not set the seal.
God-like humility-the sacred root
Whence ev'ry virtue branches into fruit,
Lays the foundation of the Christian life;
As reason governs that of human strife.
And, I appeal, sir, setting grace aside,
How oft is human reason human pride?
Human desire of victory, or fame?
A Babel tow'ring to procure a name?
A seif assurance? an untutor'd boast?
That can but form intention, at the most;
Which, tho' directed right, must humbly ask
Divine assistance to perform its task.

This Peter fail'd in-and a servant maid Made him, with all his bold resolves, afraid; With all his sure convictions, he began

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380

To curse, and swear, and did not know the man.
'Till, for a lesson, wond'rously addrest
To sink full deep into his humbled breast,
The cock pronounc'd, by an awakening crow,
Peter the man, whom Peter did not know.

But how, sir, did his coward speech betray
Doubt of his Maker's glorious display?
By what account in hist'ry are we taught
That e'er it came into his frighted thought?
Or, since 't is certain that he did deny,
What prophecy did he prefer thereby?
'T is then a cold absurdity to draw,
From Peter's weakness, this pretended flaw;
To hint delusion in the god-like sight,
Because the man was put into a fright:
If, from distrust of evidence, his fears,
From whence his bitter penitential tears?
Whence was it that the holy pris'ner shook
The soul of Peter, with one gracious look?
No glory then, to credit, or distrust;
And yet th' apostle's penitence was just;
And he himself but proof, upon the whole,
That grace alone can fortify a soul.

$90

400

'Tis urg'd that, " on the other hand, we find, With faith confirm'd, and with enlighten'd mind, After the mission of the Holy Ghost,

That argument which he appli'd'the most 410
Was what he calls" (for so the doctor too,
Takes here a vulgar errour to be true)
"This more sure word of prophecy, the chief
Of all his motives to enforce belief;
From whence he prov'd that Jesus was, of old,
Describ'd by all the prophets, and foretold."
Peter's condition, sir, is that of all
Who, from the heart, obey the Christian call:
They, by experience, have the triple sight
Of weakness, penitence, and heav'nly light; 420
While others wrangle about outward show;
Nature, and grace, and miracle they know:

2 P. 56. We know on the other hand, that after our Lord's ascension, when his faith was more fully confirmed, and his understanding enlightened by the mission of the Holy Ghost, the chief argument, which he applied in all his sermons, to evince the truth of the Gospel, was this more sure word of prophecy, as he calls it; from which he demonstrated to the Jews, how the character, doctrine, and mission of Jesus were foretold and described by the mouths of all their prophets,