The Beaux' Stratagem

Spoken by Mr. Wilks.

WHEN strife disturbs, or sloth corrupts an age, Keen satire is the business of the stage. When the Plain-Dealer writ, he lash’d those crimes, Which then infested most—the modish times: But now, when faction sleeps, and sloth is fled, And all our youth in active fields are bred; When through Great Britain’s fair extensive round, The trumps of fame, the notes of UNION sound; When Anna’s sceptre points the laws their course, And her example gives her precepts force: There scarce is room for satire; all our lays Must be, or songs of triumph, or of praise. But as in grounds best cultivated, tares And poppies rise among the golden ears; Our product so, fit for the field or school, Must mix with nature’s favourite plant—a fool: A weed that has to twenty summers ran, Shoots up in stalk, and vegetates to man. Simpling our author goes from field to field, And culls such fools as many diversion yield And, thanks to Nature, there’s no want of those, For rain or shine, the thriving coxcomb grows. Follies to-night we show ne’er lash’d before, Yet such as nature shows you every hour; Nor can the pictures give a just offence, For fools are made for jests to men of sense.