Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/142

126 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES end. His infirmities had increased : he was no longer able to leave his room, or to move in it without assistance; and this play undoubtedly shows symp- toms of impaired powers. The tone of the epilogue is in pathetic contrast to his old confident self- assertion : — ' ' Plays in themselves have neither hopes nor fears ; Their fate is only in their hearers' ears ; If you expect more than you had to-night, The maker is sick and sad. But do him right ; He meant to please you : for he sent things fit, In all the members both of sense and wit, If they have not miscarried ! if they have, All that his faint and faltering tongue doth crave Is that you not impute it to his brain, That's yet unhurt, although set round with pain, It cannot long hold out. All strength must yield ; Yet judgment would the last be in the field With a true poet," This must have disarmed any generous enemy ; but the sickness of the lion is the sweet opportunity for "the wolfs black jaw and the dull ass's hoof." The envious and the stupid, wolves and asses, howled, brayed, tore, and kicked at him, till he, who, despite the common preference of a parent for a rickety child, had borne the popular condemnation without any open complaint, was galled into publishing the piece two years afterwards, with this angry title-page : "The New Inn; or. The Light Heart, a Comedy. As it was never Acted, but most negligently Played by some, the King's Servants ; and more squeamishly beheld and censured by others, the King's Subjects, 1629. Now at last set at Liberty to the Readers, his Majesty's Servants and Subjects, to be judged of,