Chapter XVIII: Prologue: (In character.)

Too long the triumphs of our early times,
With civil discord, and with regal crimes,
Have stain'd these boards; while Shakespeare's pen has shown
Thoughts, manners, men, to modern days unknown.
Too long have Rome and Athens been the rage; [_Applause._
And classic buskins soil'd a British stage.
To-night our bard, who scorns pedantic rules,
His plot has borrow'd from the German schools;
--The German schools--where no dull maxims bind
The bold expansion of the electric mind.
Fix'd to no period, circled by no space,
He leaps the flaming bounds of time and place:
Round the dark confines of the forest raves,
With _gentle_ robbers[204] stocks his gloomy caves;
Tells how prime ministers[205] are shocking things,
And _reigning dukes_ as bad as tyrant kings;
How to _two_ swains[206] _one_ nymph her vows may give,
And how _two_ damsels with _one_ lover live!
Delicious scenes!--such scenes _our_ bard displays,
Which, crown'd with German, sue for British, praise.
Slow are the steeds, that through Germania's roads
With hempen rein the slumbering post-boy goads;
Slow is the slumbering post-boy, who proceeds
Through deep sands floundering, on those tardy steeds;
More slow, more tedious, from his husky throat
Twangs through the twisted horn the struggling note.
These truths confess'd--Oh! yet, ye travell'd few,
Germania's _plays_ with eyes unjaundiced view!
View and approve!--though in each passage fine
The faint translation[207] mock the genuine line;
Though the nice ear the erring sight belie,
For _U twice dotted_ is pronounced like _I_;
[_Applause._
Yet oft the scene shall Nature's fire impart,
Warm _from_ the breast, and glowing _to_ the heart!
Ye travell'd few, attend! On _you_ our bard
Builds his fond hope! Do you his genius guard! [_Applause._
Nor let succeeding generations say--
A British audience _damn'd_ a German play.
[_Loud and continued applauses._

[_Flash of lightning_.--_The ghost of_ PROLOGUE'S GRANDMOTHER,
_by the father's side, appears to soft music, in a white tiffany
riding-hood_. PROLOGUE _kneels to receive her blessing, which she
gives in a solemn and affecting manner, the audience clapping and
crying all the while_.--_Flash of lightning_.--PROLOGUE _and his_
GRANDMOTHER _sink through the trap-door_.

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