The world's a masquerade! the masquers, you, you, you. [To Boxes, Pit, and Gallery.
Lud! what a group the motley scene discloses !
False wits, false wives, false virgins, and false spouses!
Statesmen with bridles on; and, close beside 'em,
Patriots in party-coloured suits that ride 'em.
There Hebes, turned of fifty, try once more
To raise a flame in Cupids of threescore.
These in their turn, with appetites as keen,
Deserting fifty, fasten on fifteen.
Miss, not yet full fifteen, with fire uncommon,
Flings down her sampler, and takes up the woman ;
The little urchin smiles, and spreads her lure,
And tries to kill, ere she's got power to cure.
Thus 'tis with all their chief and constant care
Is to seem everything-but what they are.
Yon broad, bold, angry spark I fix my eye on,
Who seems to have robbed his vizor from the lion,
Who frowns, and talks, and swears, with round parade,
Looking, as who should say, Dam'me! who's afraid?
[Mimicking.
Strip but his vizor off, and sure I am
You'll find his lionship a very lamb.
Yon politician, famous in debate,
Perhaps, to vulgar eyes, bestrides the state;
Yet, when he deigns his real shape to assume,
He turns old woman, and bestrides a broom.
Yon patriot, too, who presses on your sight,
And seems, to every gazer, all in white,
If with a bribe his candour you attack,
He bows, turns round, and whip-the man's a black!
Yon critic, too-but whither do I run?
If I proceed, our bard will be undone !
Well, then, a truce, since she requests it too :
Do you spare her, and I'll for once spare you.
INTENDED EPILOGUE TO SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER'
Enter Mrs. BULKLEY, who curtsies very low as beginning to speak. Then enter Miss CATLEY, who stands full before her, and curtsies to the Audience
Mrs. Bul. Hold, Ma'am, your pardon. What's your business here?
Miss Cat. The Epilogue.
Mrs. Bul. The Epilogue?
Miss Cat. Yes, the Epilogue, my dear.
Mrs. Bul. Sure you mistake, Ma'am. The Epilogue! I
Miss Cat. Excuse me, Ma'am. The Author bid me sing it.
Ye beaux and belles, that form this splendid
Suspend your conversation while I sing.
Mrs. Bul. 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 Cat. What if we leave it to the House?
Mrs. Bul. The House !-Agreed.
Miss Cat. Agreed.
Mrs. Bul. And she whose party's largest shall proceed.
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 Cat. I'm for a different set.-Old men, whose trade is
Still to gallant and dangle with the ladies.
Who mump their passion, and who, grimly smiling,
Still thus address the fair with voice beguiling :
Turn, my fairest, turn, if ever
Strephon caught thy ravished 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!
Mrs. Bul. Let all the old pay homage to your merit :
Give me the young, the gay, the men of spirit.
Ye travelled tribe, ye macaroni train,
Of French friseurs and nosegays justly vain,
Who take a trip to Paris once a year
To dress and look like awkward Frenchmen
here,
Lend me your hands.-O fatal news to tell!
Their hands are only lent to the Heinel.
Miss Cat. 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 bonny 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 Sawney, and Jarvie, and Jockey. Mrs. Bul. 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
Doctors, who cough and answer every misfortuner,
'I wish I'd been called in a little sooner :'
Assist my cause with hands and voices hearty;
Come, end the contest here, and aid my party.
Miss Cat. Ye brave Irish lads, hark away to the crack,
Assist me, I pray, in this woful attack;
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. Bul. Well, Madam, what if, after all this sparring, We both agree, like friends, to end our jarring ? Miss Cat. And that our friendship may remain unbroken, What if we leave the Epilogue unspoken ?
Mrs. Bul. Agreed.
Miss Cat. Agreed.
Mrs. Bul. 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.
ANOTHER INTENDED EPILOGUE TO 'SHE
STOOPS TO CONQUER'
TO BE SPOKEN BY MRS. BULKLEY
THERE is a place, so Ariosto sings,
A treasury for lost and missing things:
Lost human wits have places there assigned 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 scattered wits.
The gay coquette, who ogles all the day,
Comes here at night, and goes a prude away.
Hither the 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 Dam'me, Sir,' and 'Sir, I wear a sword,'
Here lessoned 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.
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