Poems upon Several Occasions/The British Enchanters/Prologue

PROLOGUE.

POETS, by observation, find it true;
'Tis harder much to please themselves, than You:
To Weave a Plot, to Work, or to Refine
A labour'd Scene, to Polish ev'ry Line,
Judgment must sweat, and feel a Mother's Pains:
Vain Fools! thus to disturb and rack their Brains:
When, more indulgent to the Writer's Ease,
You are too good to be so hard to please:
No such convulsive Pangs it will require,
To write the pretty Things that you admire.

Our Author then, to please you in your Way,
Presents you now a Bawble of a Play,
In jingling Rhime, well fortify'd and strong,
He fights entrench'd, o'er Head and Ears, in Song,
If here and there some evil-fated Line
Should chance, thro' Inadvertency, to shine,
Forgive him, Beaux, he means you no Offence,
But begs you, for the Love of Song and Dance,
To pardon all the Poetry and Sense.