SINCE fancy by itself is loose and vain,
The wise by rules that airy power restrain:
They think those writers mad, who at their ease
Convey this house and audience where they please;
Who nature's stated distances confound,

And make this spot all soils the sun goes round:
Tis nothing, when a fancied scene's in view,
To skip from Covent-garden to Peru.

But Shakspeare's self transgress'd; and shall each elf,
Each pigmy genius, quote great Shakspeare's self?
What critic dares prescribe what's just and fit,
Or mark out limits for such boundless wit?
Shakspeare could travel through earth, sea, and air,
And paint out all the powers and wonders there.
In barren deserts he makes nature smile,
And gives us feasts in his enchanted isle.
Our author does his feeble force confess,
Nor dares pretend such merit to transgress;
Does not such shining gifts of genius share,
And therefore makes propriety his care.
Your treat with studied decency he serves;
Not only rules of time and place preserves,
But strives to keep his character entire,
With French correctness, and with British fire.
This piece, presented in a foreign tongue,
When France was glorious, and her monarch young,
An hundred times a crowded audience drew,
An hundred times repeated, still 'twas new.
Pyrrhus, provok'd, to no wild rants betray'd,
Resents his generous love so ill repaid;
Does like a man resent, a prince upbraid.
His sentiments disclose a royal mind,
Nor is he known a king from guards behind.
Injur❜d Hermione demands relief,
But not from heavy narratives of grief:
In conscious majesty her pride is shown;
Born to avenge her wrongs, but not beinoan.
Andromache-if in our author's lines,

As in the great original she shines,
Nothing but from barbarity she fears;
Attend with silence, you'll applaud with tears.

Attendants on Pyrrhus and Orestes, &c.

SCENE-A great Hall in the Court of PYRRHUS, at BUTHROTOS, the capital City of EPIRUS.

Enter ORESTES, PYLADES, and Attendants. Ores. O PYLADES! what's life without a friend! At sight of thee my gloomy soul cheers up, My hopes revive, and gladness dawns within me. After an absence of six tedious moons, How could I hope to find my Pylades, My joy, my comfort! on this fatal shore! Even in the court of Pyrrhus? in these realms, These bated realms, so cross to all my wishes. O, my brave friend! may no blind stroke of fate Divide us more, and tear me from myself.

Pyl. O prince! O my Orestes! O my friend!
Thus let me speak the welcome of my heart. [Embraces.
Since I have gain'd this unexpected meeting,
Blest be the powers that barr'd my way to Greece,
And kept me here! e'er since the unhappy day
When warring winds (Epirus full in view)
Sunder'd our barks on the loud stormy main.

Ores. It was, indeed, a morning full of horror!
Pyl. A thousand boding cares have rack'd my soul

In your behalf. Often, with tears, I mourn'd
The fatal ills, to which your life's involv'd;
And grudg'd you dangers which I could not share.
I fear'd to what extremities the black despair

That prey'd upon your mind, might have betray'd you,
And lest the gods, in pity to your woes,
Should hear your pray'rs, and take the life you loath'd,
But now with joy I see you!-The retinue,
And numerous followers that surround you here,
Speak better fortunes, and a mind dispos'd
To relish life.

Ores. Alas! my friend, who knows
The destiny to which I stand reserv'd!
I come in search of an inhuman fair;
And live or die, as she decrees my fate.

[cur'd

Pyl. You much surprise me, prince! I thought you
Of your unpity'd, unsuccessful passion.
Why, in Epirus, should you hope to find
Hermione less cruel, than at Sparta?

I thought her pride, and the disdainful manner
In which she treated all your constant sufferings,
Had broke your fetters, and assur'd your freedom:
Asham'd of your repulse, and slighted vows,
You hated her; you talk'd of her no more:
Prince, you deceiv'd me.

Ores. I deceiv'd myself.

Do not upbraid the unhappy man that loves thee.
Thou know'st I never hid my passion from thee;
Thou saw'st it, in its birth, and in its progress;
And when at last the hoary king, her father,
Great Menelaus, gave away his daughter,
His lovely daughter, to the happy Pyrrhus,
Th' avenger of his wrongs, thou saw'st my grief,
My torture, my despair; and how I dragg'd,
From sea to sea, a heavy chain of woes.
O'Pylades! my heart has bled within me,
To see thee, press'd with sorrows not thy own,
Still wand'ring with me like a banish'd man,
Watchful, and anxious for thy wretched friend,
To temper the wild transports of my mind,
And save me from myself,