keen and implacable, which, if we provoke by cruelty, as well as fraud, he drags a life of torment only in the hope to exercise in vengeance.

The distresses of OROONOKO and IMOINDA are powerful Appeals to the Heart, and the character of the Prince offers a fine scope to the grander requisites of the Performer.-ABOAN, shocking as his appearance is, works up the feelings of the Spectator by irresistible nature, and the claims of fidelity lacerated and expiring, that bears him to his MASTER, and bears him but to DIE.

The Scoundrels about these sacrifices are such as we fear even a British Settlement now can easily supply.

PROLOGUE.

AS when, in hostile times, two neighbouring states
Strive by themselves and their confederates :
The war at first is made with awkward skill,
And soldiers clumsily each other kill;

Till time, at length, their untaught fury tames,
And into rules their heedless rage reclaims :
Then ev'ry science by degrees is made
Subservient to the man-destroying trade :
Wit, wisdom, reading, observation, art;
A well-turn'd head to guide a generous heart.
So it may prove with our contending stages,
If you will kindly but supply their wages;
Which you, with ease, may furnish, by retrenching
Your superfluities of wine and wenching.
Who'd grudge to spare from riot and hard drinking,
To lay it out on means to mend his thinking?
To follow such advice you should have leisure ;
Since what refines your sense, refines your pleasure.
Women grown tame by use, each fool can get;
But cuckolds all are made by men of wit.
To virgin favours fools have no pretence ;
For maidenheads were made for men of sense.
'Tis not enough to have a horse well bred,
To shew his mettle he must be well fed;

Nor is it all in provender and breed,

He must be try'd, and strain'd, to mend his speed. A favour'd poet, like a pamper'd horse,

Will strain his eye-balls out to win the course. but in your wisdom vote it fit,

Do you

To yield due succours to this war of wit,

The buskins with more grace should tread the stage,
Love sigh in softer strains, heroes less rage;
Satire shall shew a triple row of teeth,

And Comedy shall laugh your fops to death :
Wit shall refine, and Pegasus shall foam,
And soar in search of ancient Greece and Rome.
And since the nation's in the conqu'ring fit,
As you by arms, we'll conquer France in wit.
The work were over, could our poets write
With half the spirit that our soldiers fight.

Planters, Indians, Negroes, men, women, and children. SCENE, Surinam, a colony in the West-Indies, at the times of the action of this Tragedy in the possession of the English.