the voluntary slave of all; and to seek among strangers that fortitude which may give strength to the mind and marshal all its dissipated virtues. Yet, ere I depart, permit me to solicit favour for this gentleman, who, notwithstanding what has 560 happened, has laid me under the most signal obligations. Mr. Lofty

Lofty. Mr. Honeywood, I'm resolv'd upon a reformation as well as you. I now begin to find that the man who first invented the art of speak-565 ing truth was a much cunninger fellow than I thought him. And to prove that I design to speak truth for the future, I must now assure you that you owe your late enlargement to another, as, upon my soul, I had no hand in the matter. 570 So now, if any of the company has a mind for preferment, he may take my place. I'm determined to resign.

Honeyw. How have I been deceived!

Exit.

Sir Will. No sir, you have been obliged to a 575 kinder, fairer friend for that favour. To Miss Richland. Would she complete our joy, and make the man she has honoured by her friendship happy in her love, I should then forget all, and be as blest as the welfare of my dearest kins- 580 man can make me.

Miss Rich. After what is past, it would be but affectation to pretend to indifference. Yes, I will

own an attachment which, I find, was more than friendship. And if my intreaties cannot 585 alter his resolution to quit the country, I will even try if my hand has not power to detain him. Giving her hand.

Honeyw. Heavens! how can I have deserved all this? How express my happiness, my gratitude? A moment like this over-pays an age of 590 apprehension!

Croak. Well, now I see content in every face; but Heaven send we be all better this day three months.

Sir Will. Henceforth, nephew, learn to re-595 spect yourself. He who seeks only for applause from without, has all his happiness in another's keeping.

Honeyw. Yes, sir, I now too plainly perceive my errors. My vanity, in attempting to please 600 all by fearing to offend any. My meanness, in approving folly lest fools should disapprove. Henceforth, therefore, it shall be my study to reserve my pity for real distress; my friendship for true merit, and my love for her who first 605 taught me what it is to be happy.

EPILOGUE *

SPOKEN BY MRS. BULKLEY

As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure
To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure;
Thus, on the stage, our playwrights still depend
For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend,
Who knows each art of coaxing up the town,
And makes full many a bitter pill go down.
Conscious of this, our bard has gone about,
And teaz'd each rhyming friend to help him out.
An Epilogue, things can't go on without it,
It could not fail, wou'd you but set about it.
Young man, cries one (a bard laid up
in clover),
Alas, young man, my writing days are over;
Let boys play tricks, and kick the straw, not I;
Your brother Doctor there, perhaps, may try.
What I, dear sir, the Doctor interposes,
What, plant my thistle, sir, among his roses!

* The Author in expectation of an epilogue from a friend at Oxford deferred writing one himself till the very last hour. What is here offered owes all its success to the graceful manner of the Actress who spoke it.

6 makes. Make in octavos.

Epilogue Note. In Or the lines end with at, what, of, it; in O2 and 03 with friend, hour, manner, it.

5

ΙΟ

15

No, no, I've other contests to maintain;
To-night I head our troops at Warwick-Lane.
Go, ask your manager-Who, me? Your par-

don;

Those things are not our fort at Covent-Garden.

Our Author's friends, thus plac'd at happy dis

tance,

Give him good words indeed, but no assistance.
As some unhappy wight, at some new play,
At the Pit door stands elbowing away,

While oft, with many a smile, and many a
shrug,

He eyes the centre, where his friends sit snug,
His simpering friends, with pleasure in their

eyes,

Sink as he sinks, and as he rises rise:

He nods, they nod; he cringes, they grimace;
But not a soul will budge to give him place.
Since then, unhelp'd, our bard must now con-

form

To 'bide the pelting of this pittiless storm,
Blame where you must, be candid where you

can,

And be each critick the Good-natur'd Man.

19 Who, me? Or, O2 Who, me!

34 And be each critick. Or and O2 read: And view with favour.

20

25

30

Notes

For single words see Glossary.

3, 3. Genteel comedy. See Introduction, pp. xii, xiv. 3, 14. The scene... representation. See Act II. PP. 74-83. It was restored to the stage in 1773.

3, 21. The French comedy. See Introduction, p. xii. 4, 1. For his kindness. Colman (cf. Introduction) had not been particularly kind to the play. This was the gratitude of

success.

Prologue. Spoken by Mr. Bensley. Robert Bensley, 1738-1817, took the part of Leontine in the play. Lamb praises him in his essay "On Some of the Old Actors. He was an excellent Malvolio.

6, 22. Swelling Crispin, i. e. a cobbler or shoemaker, of whom St. Crispin was the patron saint. Cf. Shakespeare's Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 3.

with

9. The Good Natur'd Man. A certain Mr. S this nickname, who figures in Goldsmith's Life of Richard Nash, of Bath, Esq., 1762, p. 85, and who eventually died in gaol, is thought to have suggested this title.

12, 93. Crooked-lane. There is a Crooked Lane which turns out of Cannon Street, London, though Goldsmith need not have been thinking of it. He also mentions Crooked Lane in Letter LXVIII. of the Citizen of the World, 1762, and in Act II. of She Stoops to Conquer.

17, 220. Passing bell. The bell that tolls for the dying

or dead.

"Before the Passing Bell begun

The News thro' half the Town has run."

Swift's Verses on his Own Death, 1739.

17. Enter Croaker. This character is affirmed to have