Would not you, now"--and here he turned to his
brewer friend, Mr. Thrale--"rather give away money than porter?" To
his own tragedy of "Irene," Johnson supplied a spirited prologue,
which "awed" the house, as Boswell believed. In the concluding lines
he deprecated all effort to win applause by other than legitimate
means:
Be this at least his praise, be this his pride:
To force applause no modern arts are tried;
Should partial catcalls all his hopes confound,
He bids no trumpet quell the fatal sound;
Should welcome sleep relieve the weary wit,
He rolls no thunders o'er the drowsy pit;
No snares to captivate the judgment spreads,
Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads.
Unmoved, though witlings sneer and rivals rail,
Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.
He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain;
With merit needless, and without it vain.
In Reason, Nature, Truth he dares to trust:
Ye fops be silent, and ye wits be just!
Of prologues generally, Johnson pronounced that Dryden's were superior
to any that David Garrick had written, but that Garrick had written
more good prologues than Dryden.
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