While others vainly ftrive to know Thee more, Let me in filent Reverence adore;

Wishing that human Pow'r were higher rais'd,
Only that Thine might be more nobly prais'd!
Thrice happy Angels in their high Degree;

Created worthy of extolling Thee!

FINI S.

THE.

TRAGEDY

OF

JULIUS CÆSAR,

ALTERED:

With a PROLOGUE and CHORUS;

By His GRACE

JOHN Duke of BUCKINGHAM.

P 2

PROLOGUE to the Alteration of JULIUS CÆSAR.

Ope to mend SHAKESPEAR! or to match hisStyle!
'Tis fuch a feft, would make a Stoick fmile.
Too fond of Fame, our Poet foars too high;
Tet freely owns he wants the Wings.to fly :
So fenfible 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 nobleft Men,
This Story most deferves 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 fuch a State inflav'd!
Tet loth he was to take fo rough a way,
And after govern'd with fo mild a Sway,
At diftance now of feventeen hundred Years,
Methinks a lovely Ravisher appears ;
Whom, tho' forbid by Virtue to excuse,

A Nymph might pardon, and could scarce refuse.

This Play begins the Day before CÆSAR's Death,

and ends within an Hour after it.