The Poetical Works of the Right Hon. George Granville, Lord Lansdowne/97

by George Granville

PROLOGUE
TO THE BRITISH ENCHANTERS.

Poets by obſervation find it true
’T is harder much to pleaſe themſelves than you:
To weave a plot, to work and to refine
A labour’d ſcene, to poliſh ev’ry line,
Judgment muſt ſweat, and feel a mother’s pains.5
Vain Fools! thus to diſturb and rack their brains,
When, more indulgent to the writer’s eaſe,
You are too good to be ſo hard to pleaſe:
No ſuch convulſive pangs it will require
To write the pretty things which you admire.10

Our author then, to pleaſe you in your way,
Preſents you now a bauble of a play;
In gingling rhyme, well fortify’d and ſtrong,
He fights entrench’d o’er head and ears in ſong.
If here and there ſome evil-fated line15
Should chance, thro’ inadvertency, to ſhine,
Forgive him, Beaus! he means you no offence,
But begs you, for the love of ſong and dance,
To pardon all the poetry and ſenſe.19