A Roman and a British Ensign wave
Friendly together, so through Lud's town march,
And in the Temple of great Jupiter
Our Peace we'll ratify. Seal it with feasts.
Set on, there. Never was a war did cease,
Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with fuch a Peace.

THIS Play has many just sentiments, some natural dia logues, and some pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expence of much incongruity.

To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confufion of the names

[Exeunt omnes..

and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to wafte criticism upon unrefifting Imbecillity, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation,

A SONG, Jung by Guiderus and Arviragus over Fidele, supposed to be dead.

By Mr. WILLIAM COLLINS.

1.

To fair Fidele's graffy tomb

Soft maids, and village binds shall bring

Each op'ning frweet, of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring.

2.

No wailing ghost shall dare appear

To vex with shrieks this quiet grove :

But Shepherd lads assemble bere,
And melling virgins own their love.

3.

No wither'd witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew:
The female Fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew.

Dd 2

The

4.

The red-breast oft at ev'ning hours
Shall kindly beud his little aid,

With boary moss, and gather'd flow'rs,

To deck the ground where thou art laid.

5.

When bowling winds, and beating rain,
In tempests shake the Sylvan cell:

Or midst the chace on ev'ry plain,

The tender thought on thee shall dwell.

6.

Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
For thee the tear be duly shed:
Belov'd, 'till life could charm no more s
And mourn'd'till pity's self be dead.

TROILUS

TROILUS

AND

CRESSIDA.

Dd3

:

PROLOGUE.

IN Troy, there lies the scene: from Isles of Greece
The Princes orgillous, their high blood chaf'd,

Have to the Port of Athens fent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from th' Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made
To ransack Troy; within whose strong Immures,
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' Queen,

With wanton Paris sleeps; and That's the Quarrel.
To Tenedos they come

And the deep-drawing Barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains,
The fresh, and yet unbruised, Greeks do pitch

Their brave Pavillions.

Priam's fix Gates i th City,

Dardan, aud Thymbria, Ilia, Scæa, Troian,
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperre up the fons of Troy.

*-Priam's fix-gated city
Durdan and Timbria, Helias,
Chetas, Trojan,
And Antenonidus, with massy
Staples

And correfponfive and fulfilling
balts

Stir up the fons of Troy.] This has been a moft miferably mangled passage, through all the editions; corrupted at once into falie concord and false reasoning.

Now

Priam's fix-gated City flirre up the fons of I roy? Here's a verb plural governed of a Nominative fingular. But that is easily remcdied. The next question to be ask'd, is, in what sense a city having fix ftrong gates, and those well barr'd and bolted, can be faid to ftir up its inhabitants ? unless they may be supposed to dasive some spirit from the ftrength of their fortifications, But

:

:

Now expectation tickling skittish Spirits
On one and other fide, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And bither am I come
+ A Prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
Of Author's pen, or Actor's voice; but fuited
In like conditions as our Argument;
To tell you, fair Bebolders, that our Play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
'Ginning i th' middle: starting thence away,
To what may be digested in a Play.
Like, or find fault,-do, as your pleasures are;
Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

But this could not be the poet's
thought. He must mean, I take
it, that the Greeks had pitched
their tents upon the plains before
Troy; and that the Trojans were
securely barricaded within the
walls and gates of their city.
This sense my correction restores.
To Sperre, or Spar, from the old
Teutonic word, (SPERREN) fig-

:

nifies, to shut up, defend by barrs,
&c.
: THEOBALD.

+ A prologue arm'd,-] I come here to speak the prologue, and come in armour; not defying the audience, in confidence of either the authour's or actor's abilities, but merely in a character suited to the subject, in a dress of war, before a warlike play.

Dd 4.

Dramatis