What generous Briton can refuse his hands?
Like the tame animals design'd for show,
You have your cues to clap, as they to bow,
Taught to commend, your judgments have no share,
By chance you guess aright, by chance you err.

But, handkerchiefs and Britain laid aside,
To-night we mean to laugh, and not to chide.

In days of yore, when fools were held in fashion,
Tho' now, alas! all banish'd from the nation,
A merry jester had reform'd his lord,
Who would have scorn'd the sterner Stoick's word

Bred in Democritus his laughing schools,
Our author flies sad Heraclitus rules,
No tears, no terror plead in his behalf,
The aim of Farce is but to make you laugh
Beneath the tragick or the comick name,
Farces and puppet shows ne'er miss of fame
Since then, in borrow'd dress, they've pleas'd the town,
Condemn them not, appearing in their own

Smiles we expect from the good-natur'd few,
As ye are done by, ye malicious, do,
And kindly laugh at him who laughs at you.


PERSONS IN THE FARCE.