EPILOGUE,

SPOKEN BY

MRS. BULKLEY AND MISS CATLEY.

Enter Mrs. Bulkley, who courtesies very low, as beginning to speak. Then enter Miss Catley, who stands full before her, and courtesies to the audience.

Mrs. Bulkley. HOLD, Ma'am, your pardon. What's your business here?

Miss Catley. The Epilogue.

Mrs. B. The Epilogue?

Miss C. Yes, the Epilogue, my dear.

Mrs. B. Sure, you mistake, Ma'am. The Epilogue! I bring it.

Miss C. sing it.

Excuse me, Ma'am. The author bid me

Recitative.

Ye beaux and belles, that form this splendid ring,

Suspend your conversation while I sing.

Mrs. B. Why, sure, the girl's beside herself! an Epilogue of singing?

A hopeful end, indeed, to such a blest beginning.

Besides, a singer in a comic set

Excuse me, Ma'am, I know the etiquette.

Miss C. What if we leave it to the house?
Mrs. B. The house?- Agreed.

Mrs. B. And she whose party 's largest shall pro

ceed.

And first, I hope you 'll readily agree

I've all the critics and the wits for me.
They, I am sure, will answer my commands:
Ye candid judging few, hold up your hands.
What! no return? I find too late, I fear,
That modern judges seldom enter here.

Miss C. I'm for a different set:-Old men, whose trade is

Still to gallant and dangle with the ladies.

Recitative.

Who mump their passion, and who, grimly smiling,
Still thus address the fair with voice beguiling:

AIR.-Cotillon.

Turn, my fairest, turn, if ever

Strephon caught thy ravish'd eye,
Pity take on your swain so clever,
Who without your aid must die.

Yes, I shall die, hu, hu, hu, hu!
Yes, I must die, ho, ho, ho, ho!

Da Capo.

Mrs. B. Let all the old pay homage to your
Give me the young, the gay, the men of spirit.
Ye travell❜d tribe, ye macaroni train,
Of French friseurs and nosegays justly vain,

Who take a trip to Paris once a-year,

merit ;

To dress, and look like awkward Frenchmen here,— Lend me your hands: O, fatal news to tell,

Their hands are only lent to the Heinelle.

Miss C. Ay, take your travellers - travellers indeed! Give me my bonny Scot, that travels from the Tweed. Where are the chiels? Ah, ah, I well discern The smiling looks of each bewitching bairn.

AIR. A bonnie young lad is my Jockey.

I'll sing to amuse you by night and by day,
And be unco merry when you are but gay;
When you with your bagpipes are ready to play,
My voice shall be ready to carol away

With Sandy, and Sawney, and Jockey,

With Sawnie, and Jarvie, and Jockey.

Mrs. B. Ye gamesters, who, so eager in pursuit,
Make but of all your fortune one va toute:

Ye jockey tribe, whose stock of words are few,
'I hold the odds Done, done, with you, with you!'
Ye barristers, so fluent with grimace,

'My Lord, your Lordship misconceives the case: Doctors, who answer every misfortuner,

'I wish I'd been call'd in a little sooner :' Assist my cause with hands and voices hearty, Come, end the contest here, and aid my party.

AIR.- Ballinamony.

Miss C. Ye brave Irish lads, hark away to the crack, Assist me, I pray, in this woeful attack;

For sure, I don't wrong you

you seldom are slack,

When the ladies are calling, to blush and hang back.

For you are always polite and attentive,
Still to amuse us inventive,

And death is your only preventive;

Your hands and voices for me.

Mrs. B. Well, Madam, what if, after all this sparring, We both agree, like friends, to end our jarring? Miss C. And that our friendship may remain unbrok

en,

What if we leave the Epilogue unspoken?

Mrs. B. Agreed.
Miss C. Agreed.

Mrs. B. And now with late repentance,
Un-epilogued the Poet waits his sentence.
Condemn the stubborn fool, who can't submit
To thrive by flattery, though he starves by wit.

Exeunt.

AN EPILOGUE

INTENDED FOR MRS. BULKLEY.

THERE is a place

A treasury for lost and missing things,

Lost human wits have places there assign'd them,
And they who lose their senses, there may find them.
But where's this place, this storehouse of the age?
The Moon, says he; but I affirm, the Stage —
At least, in many things, I think I see
His lunar and our mimic world agree :
Both shine at night, for, but at Foote's alone,
We scarce exhibit till the sun goes down;

Both prone to change, no settled limits fix,
And sure the folks of both are lunatics.
But in this parallel my best pretence is,
That mortals visit both to find their senses;
To this strange spot, Rakes, Macaronies, Cits,
Come thronging to collect their scatter'd wits.
The gay coquette, who ogles all the day,
Comes here at night, and goes a prude away.
Hither th' affected city dame advancing,
Who sighs for Operas, and doats on dancing,
Taught by our art, her ridicule to pause on,
Quits the Ballet, and calls for Nancy Dawson.
The Gamester, too, whose wit's all high or low,
Oft risks his fortune on one desperate throw,
Comes here to saunter, having made his bets,
Finds his lost senses out, and pays his debts.
The Mohawk, too, with angry phrases stored
As, Damme, Sir!' and 'Sir, I wear a sword!'
Here lesson'd for a while, and hence retreating,
Goes out, affronts his man, and takes a beating.
Here comes the sons of scandal and of news,
But find no sense for they had none to lose.
Of all the tribe here wanting an adviser,
Our Author's the least likely to grow wiser;
Has he not seen how you your favor place
On sentimental queens, and lords in lace?
Without a star, a coronet, or garter,

How can the piece expect or hope for quarter?
No high-life scenes, no sentiment: the creature
Still stoops among the low to copy Nature.'
Yes, he 's far gone and yet some pity fix,

The English laws forbid to punish lunatics.