PROLOGUE to the Alteration of JULIUS CÆSAR.

Hope to mend Shakespear! or to match his Style!
'Tis such a Jest, would make a Stoick smile.
Too fond of Fame, our Poet soars too high;
Yet freely owns he wants the Wings to fly:
So sensible of his presumptuous Thought,
That he confesses while he does the Fault:
This to the Fair will no great wonder prove,
Who oft in Blushes yield to what they love.

Of greatest Actions, and of noblest Men,
This Story most deserves a Poet's Pen.
For who can wish a Scene more justly fam'd,
When Rome and mighty Julius are but nam'd?
That State of Heroes, who the World had brav'd!
That wondrous Man, who such a State inslav'd!
Yet loth he was to take so rough a way,
And after govern'd with so mild a Sway,
At distance now of sev'nteen hundred Years,
Methinks a lovely Ravisher appears;
Whom, tho' forbid by Virtue to excuse,
A Nymph might pardon, and could scarce refuse.

Dramatis Personæ. Julius Cæsar [Julius Caesar], Dictator. Brutus [Marcus Brutus], Conspirator. Cassius Conspirator. Dec. Brutus [Decius Brutus], Conspirator. Trebonius, Conspirator. Casca, Conspirator. M. Antonius [Marcus Antonius]. Junius, One of Cæsar's Freedmen. Portia, Wife of Brutus. Lucius, One of his Servants. Senators [Senator 1], [Senator 2], [Senator]. Priests [Priest], [Priest 2]. Tradesmen [Tradesman], [Tradesman 1] and Citizens [Citizen 1], [Citizen 2], [Citizen 3], [Citizen], [Citizen 4]. Spurinna, A Sooth-sayer [Soothsayer]. [Messenger], [People of Rome], [Genius of Rome], [Spirit 1], [Spirit 2], [Chorus], [Messala] ^note

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