Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/187

Is common life, must be a thing of course,
Whereas there's nought so difficult, because
There's nowhere less allowance made for flaws.
See Plautus now: what ill-sustained affairs
Are his close fathers and his love-sick heirs!
How farcical his parasites! how loose
And down at heel he wears his comic shoes!
For, so he fills his pockets, nought he heeds
Whether the play's a failure or succeeds.
Drawn to the house in glory's car, the bard
Is made by interest, by indifference marred:
So slight the cause that prostrates or restores
A mind that lives for plaudits and encores.
Nay, I forswear the drama, if to win
Or lose the prize can make me plump or thin.
Then too it tries an author's nerve, to find
The class in numbers strong, though weak in mind,
The brutal brainless mob, who, if a knight
Disputes their judgment, bluster and show fight,
Call in the middle of a play for bears
Or boxers;--'tis for such the rabble cares.
But e'en the knights have changed, and now they prize
Delighted ears far less than dazzled eyes.
The curtain is kept down four hours or more,
While horse and foot go hurrying o'er the floor,
While crownless majesty is dragged in chains,
Chariots succeed to chariots, wains to wains,
Whole fleets of ships in long procession pass,