For sure I don't wrong you, you seldom are slack,

When the ladies are calling, to blush and hang back; For you 're always polite and attentive,

Still to amuse us inventive,

And death is your only preventive:

Your hands and your voices for me.

MRS. BULKLEY.

Well, madam, what if, after all this sparring,
We both agree, like friends, to end our jarring?

MISS CATLEY.

And that our friendship may remain unbroken,
What if we leave the epilogue unspoken?

And now, with late repentance,

Un-epilogu'd the poet waits his sentence:

Condemn the stubborn fool who can 't submit

To thrive by flattery-though he starves by wit.

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE

WRITTEN FOR

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.'

THERE is a place-so Ariosto sings

A treasury for lost and missing things;

Lost human wits have places there assign'd themAnd they who lose their senses, there may find them.

1 From The miscellaneous works, 1801.-This epilogue, which had been given by its author to the Rev. Thomas Percy, was first published in the above collection. It is there described as An epilogue intended for Mrs. Bulkley; but it is stated, in a note, "for what comedy it was intended is not remembered." Neither Steevens nor Reed could give the information required. Now, the letter appended to the quarrelling epilogue decides the question: it is the second attempt of its author-the epilogue which Colman declined to sanction.-Line 1. There is a place-so Ariosto sings.

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;

ΙΟ

The poet alludes to the thirty-fourth canto of The Orlando furioso. Ariosto, as translated by Mr. Stewart Rose, observes of the lunar world:

"There wilt thou find, if thou wilt thither post,
Whatever thou on earth beneath hast lost."

Astolpho undertakes the journey; discovers a portion of his own sense; and, in an ample flask, the lost wits of Orlando. Line 9, Both shine at night-for, but at Foote's alone. Foote gave a morning rehearsal of Piety in pattens, an anti-sentimental piece, on the 6th of March 1773. Line 22. Nancy Dawson a favourite air. Anstey attests its popularity; and Colman wrote a ballad to the same lively air.

Hither the affected city dame advancing,
Who sighs for operas, and dotes on dancing,
Taught by our art her ridicule to pause on,
Quits the ballet, and calls for Nancy Dawson.

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The gamester too, whose wits 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 stor❜d,
As "Dam'me 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 come 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 favour 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.

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