William Crowe

The British Theatre

  WRITTEN IN 1775.

  When first was rear’d the British Stage,
    Rude was the scene and weak the lay;
  The Bard explored the sacred Page,
    And holy Mystery form’d his Play.

  Th’ affections of the mortal breast
    In simple Moral next he sung,
  Each Vice[17] in human shape he drest,
    And to each Virtue[17] gave a tongue.

  Then ’gan the Comic Muse unfold
    In coarser jests her homely art:
  Of Gammer Gurton’s[18] loss she told,
    And laugh’d at Hodge’s awkward smart.

  Come from thy wildly-winding stream,
    First-born of Genius, SHAKSPEARE, come!
  The listening World attends thy theme,
    And bids each elder Bard[19] be dumb:

  For thou, within the human Mind
    Fix’d, as on thy peculiar throne,
  Sitt’st like a Deity inshrined;
    And either Muse is all thine own!

  Yet shall not Time’s rough hand destroy
    The scenes by learned Jonson writ;
  Nor shall Oblivion e’er enjoy
    The charms of Fletcher’s courtly wit:

  And still in matchless beauty live
    The numbers of that Lyric Strain
  Sung gayly to the Star of Eve
    By Comus and his jovial Train.

  Here sunk the Stage:—and dire alarms
    The Muse’s voice did overwhelm;
  For wounded Freedom call’d to arms,
    And Discord shook the embattled Realm.

  But Peace return’d; and with her came
    (Alas! how changed!) the tuneful Pair:
  Thalia’s eye should blench with shame,
    And her sad Sister weep to hear

  How the mask’d[20] Fair, in Charles’s reign,
    Her lewd and riotous Fancy fed
  At Killigrew’s debauchful scene,
    While hapless Otway pined for Bread.

  Thus the sweet Lark shall sing unheard,
    And Philomel sit silent by;
  While every vile and chattering bird
    Torments the grove with ribald cry.

  And see what witless Bards presume
    With buskin’d fools to rhyme and rage;
  While Mason’s idle Muse is dumb,
    And weary Garrick quits the Stage.

[17] Personification of the passions in the moralities.

[18] Gammer Gurton’s Needle is the oldest 
English comedy; the distress of it arises 
from the loss of the needle, which at last 
is discovered in her man Hodge’s breeches.

[19] There were no plays of any note 
before Shakspeare.

[20] The custom of that time, for fear of 
hearing indecencies, otherwise
too gross to be supported.