Though woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirr'd,

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 't is surely better to retrench:
The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow
In tragic scene 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;
To
gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear
Young Arthur's eyes, can ours or nature
bear?

280

Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit,

And smile at folly, if we can't at wit; Yes, friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell,

And bear Swift's motto, Vive la bagatelle !'

Which charm'd our days in each Ægean clime,

As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme. Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past, Soothe thy life's scenes, nor leave thee in the last;

But find in thine, like pagan Plato's bed, Some merry manuscript of mimes, when dead.

350