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 ?

Sure

you mistake, Ma'am. The Epilogue, I bring

it.

Miss CATLEY.

Excuse me, Ma'am. The Author bid me sing it.

RECITATIVE.

Ye beaux and belles, that form this splendid ring, Suspend your conversation while I sing.

Mrs BULKLEY.

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 CATLEY.

What if we leave it to the house?

Mrs BULKLEY.

The house!-Agreed.

Miss CATLEY.

Agreed.

Mrs BULKLEY.

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 CATLEY.

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 BULKLEY.

Let all the old pay homage to your merit;
Give me the young, the gay, the men of spirit.
Ye travell❜d tribe, ye macaroni train,

Of French frisseurs 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 Heinelle.

Miss CATLEY.

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.

1

Mrs BULKLEY.

Ye Gamesters, who so eager in pursuit,

Make but of all your fourtune 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 cough and answer every misfortunér, 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 CATLEY.

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 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?

Mrs BULKLEY.

Agreed.

Miss CATLEY.

Agreed.

Mrs BULKLEY.

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.