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Updated: May 24, 2025
He translated from Virgil, Lucan, Horace, and Guarini; wrote prologues, epilogues, and other occasional verses; but is now principally remembered for his poetical Essay on Translated Verse , in which he develops principles previously laid down by Cowley and Denham. To his credit be it said, he condemns indecency, both as want of sense and bad taste.
I commence: At Poissy the nuns were accustomed to, when Mademoiselle, the king's daughter, their abbess, had gone to bed..... It was she who first called it faire la petite oie, to stick to the preliminaries of love, the prologues, prefaces, protocols, warnings, notices, introductions, summaries, prospectuses, arguments, notices, epigraphs, titles, false-titles, current titles, scholia, marginal remarks, frontispieces, observations, gilt edges, bookmarks, reglets, vignettes, tail pieces, and engravings, without once opening the merry book to read, re-read, and study to apprehend and comprehend the contents.
'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings; Prologues in metre are to other pros As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. "The world's a stage," as Shakspeare said, one day; The stage a world was what he meant to say. The outside world's a blunder, that is clear; The real world that Nature meant is here.
It is remarkable that his prologues and epilogues are all his own, though he sometimes supplied others; he afforded help, but did not solicit it.
Then, I was also leader in the orchestra; and had scarcely to speak the prologues. Such are the cares of greatness: to do myself justice, I did not dislike them; though, to be sure, my taste for the drama did cost me a little dear, as will be seen in the sequel. We were then in the full career of popularity.
But under the presidential government the nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns. There are doubtless debates in the legislature, but they are prologues without a play. The prize of power is not in the gift of the legislature.
"Poor little thing, she is tired to death," cried Polly remorsefully, while they all rushed over to the heap of lace and spangles, blissfully oblivious of "prologues." "Do let her sleep through this piece of stupidity," said Jasper, bundling up another satin skirt that Mrs. Whitney had loaned for Polly to make a choice from.
This poison spread. It spread, too, to an incredible extent, in a prince who, although of intellect beneath mediocrity, was not utterly without sense, and who had had some experience. Without voice or musical knowledge, he used to sing, in private, the passages of the opera prologues that were fullest of his praises.
And, indeed, leaving a rabble of long prologues and protestations, which ordinarily these dolent contemplative lent-lovers make who never meddle with the flesh, one day he said unto her, Madam, it would be a very great benefit to the commonwealth, delightful to you, honourable to your progeny, and necessary for me, that I cover you for the propagating of my race, and believe it, for experience will teach it you.
In the evening the pair formed part of a corps of party "wits," led by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to the benefit of Mrs. Abingdon, who had been a frequent model of the painter. Johnson praised Garrick's prologues, and Boswell kindly reported the eulogy to Garrick, with whom he supped at Beauclerk's. Garrick treated him to a mimicry of Johnson, repeating, "with pauses and half-whistling," the lines,
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