Читать книгу The Toy Shop (1735) The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737) - Dodsley Robert - Страница 3

Well, Heav'n be prais'd, this dull grave Sermon's done.

(For faith our Author might have call'd it one)

I wonder who the Devil he thought to please!

Is this a Time o' Day for Things like these?

Good Sense and honest Satire now offend;

We're grown too wise to learn, too proud to mend.

And so divinely wrapt in Songs and Tunes,

The next wise Age will all be – Fiddlers Sons.

And did he think plain Truth wou'd Favour find?

Ah! 'tis a Sign he little knows Mankind!

To please, he ought to have a Song or Dance,

The Tune from Italy, the Caper France:

These, these might charm – But hope to do't with Sense!

Alas, alas, how vain is the Pretence!

But, tho' we told him, – Faith, 'twill never do. —

Pho, never fear, he cry'd, tho' grave, 'tis new:

The Whim, perhaps, may please, if not the Wit.

And, tho' they don't approve, they may permit.

If neither this nor that will intercede,

Submissive bond, and thus for Pardon plead.

"To gen'rous Few, to you our Author sues

His first Essay with Candour to excuse.

'T has Faults, he owns, but, if they are but small,

He hopes your kind Applause will hide them all."