PROLOGUE TO GODWIN'S TRAGEDY OF "FAULKENER"

(1807)

An author who has given you all delight, Furnish'd the tale our stage presents to-night. Some of our earliest tears He taught to steal Down our young cheeks, and forc'd us first to feel. To solitary shores whole years confin'd, Who has not read how pensive Crusoe pin'd? Who, now grown old, that did not once admire His goat, his parrot, his uncouth attire, The stick, due-notch'd, that told each tedious day That in the lonely island wore away? Who has not shudder'd, where he stands aghast At sight of human footsteps in the waste? Or joy'd not, when his trembling hands unbind Thee, Friday, gentlest of the savage kind? The genius who conceiv'd that magic tale Was skill'd by native pathos to prevail. His stories, though rough-drawn, and fram'd in haste, Had that which pleas'd our homely grandsires' taste. His was a various pen, that freely rov'd Into all subjects, was in most approv'd. Whate'er the theme, his ready Muse obey'd— Love, courtship, politics, religion, trade— Gifted alike to shine in every sphere, Nov'list, historian, poet, pamphleteer. In some blest interval of party-strife, He drew a striking sketch from private life, Whose moving scenes of intricate distress We try to-night in a dramatic dress: A real story of domestic woe, That asks no aid from music, verse, or show, But trusts to truth, to nature, and Defoe.