By him the childless goddess rose,
Minerva, studious to compose

Her twisted threads; the web she strung,
And o'er a loom of marble hung:
Thetis, the troubled ocean's queen,
Match'd with a mortal, next was seen,
Reclining on a funeral urn,

Her short-liv'd darling son to mourn.
The last was he, whose thunder slew
The Titan race, a rebel crew,
That from a hundred hills ally'd
In impious leagues their king defy'd.
This wonder of the sculptor's hand
Produced, his art was at a stand:
For who would hope new fame to raise,
Or risk his well-establish'd praise,
That, his high genius to approve,

Had drawn a GEORGE, or carv'd a Jove!

PREFACE.

HAVING recommended this play to the town, and delivered the copy of it to the bookseller, I think myself obliged to give some account of it.

It had been some years in the hands of the author, and falling under my perusal, I thought so well of it, that I persuaded him to make some additions and alterations to it, and let it appear upon the stage. I own I was very highly pleased with it, and liked it the better for the want of those studied similes and repartees, which we, who have writ before him, have thrown into our plays, to indulge and gain upon a false taste that has prevailed for many years in the British theatre. I believe the author would have condescended to fall into this way a little more than he has, had he, before the writing of it, been often present at the theatrical representations. I was confirmed in my thoughts of the play, by the opinion of better judges, to whom it was communicated, who observed that the scenes were drawn after Moliere's manner, and that an easy and natural vein of humour ran through the whole.

I do not question but the reader will discover this, and see many beauties that escaped the audience; the touches being too delicate for every taste in a popular assembly. My brothersharers were of opinion, at the first reading of it, that it was like a picture in which the strokes