But from the Drama let me not digress, Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less. [xlii] Though Woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirred, [xliii] When what is done is rather seen than heard, Yet many deeds preserved in History's page Are better told than acted on the stage; The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye, And Horror thus subsides to Sympathy, 270 True Briton all beside, I here am French-- Bloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench: The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow In tragic scenes disgusts though but in show; We hate the carnage while we see the trick, And find small sympathy in being sick. Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth Appals an audience with a Monarch's death; [xliv] To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear Young Arthur's eyes, can _ours_ or _Nature_ bear? 280 A haltered heroine [21] Johnson sought to slay-- We saved Irene, but half damned the play, And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times Stint Metamorphoses to Pantomimes; And Lewis' [22] self, with all his sprites, would quake To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake! Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief, We loathe the action which exceeds belief: And yet, God knows! what may not authors do, Whose Postscripts prate of dyeing "heroines blue"? [23] 290 Above all things, _Dan_ Poet, if you can, Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man, Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape [xlv] Must open ten trap-doors for your escape. Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid, I loathe an Opera worse than Dennis did; [24] Where good and evil persons, right or wrong, Rage, love, and aught but moralise--in song. Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends, [xlvi] Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends! 300 Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay On whores--spies--singers--wisely shipped away. Our giant Capital, whose squares are spread [xlvii] Where rustics earned, and now may beg, their bread, In all iniquity is grown so nice, It scorns amusements which are not of price. Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear, [xlviii] Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore, His anguish doubling by his own "encore;" [xlix] 310 Squeezed in "Fop's Alley," [25] jostled by the beaux, Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes; Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease, Till the dropped curtain gives a glad release: Why this, and more, he suffers--can ye guess?-- Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress! [26]