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, courtesies to the audience.

Mrs Bulkley.

and

Hold, ma'am, your pardon. What's

your business here?

Miss Catley. The Epilogue.

Mrs Bulkl. The Epilogue?

Miss Catl. Yes, the Epilogue, my dear.

Mrs Bulkl. Sure you mistake, ma'am. The Epilogue?

I bring it.

Miss Catl. 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 Bulkl. Why, sure the girl's beside herself! an Epi

logue of singing?

A hopeful end indeed to such a bless'd beginning.

Besides, a singer in a comic set

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

The house!-Agreed.

Miss Catl.

What if we leave it to the house?

Mrs Bulkl.

Miss Catl.

Agreed.

Mrs Bulkl. And she whose party's largest shall proceed.

And first, I hope you'll readily agree

I've all the critics and the wits with 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 Catl. 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 Bulkl. 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 Heinel.*

Miss Catl. 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 Bulkl. Ye gamesters, who so eager in pursuit, Make but of all your fortune one va toute:

Mlle. Heinel was, in 1773, the principal artiste at the Opera-house.

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 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.

AIR.-Ballinamony.

Miss Catl. 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 are always polite and attentive,

Still to amuse us inventive,

And death is your only preventive:

Your hands and your voices for me.

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

Miss Catl. And that our friendship may remain unbroken,

What if we leave the Epilogue unspoken?

Mrs Bulkl. Agreed.

Miss Catl. Agreed.

Mrs Bulkl. 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, so Ariosto sings,

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 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 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 stored,
As "Dam'me, sir," and "Sir, I wear a sword,"
Here lesson'd for awhile, 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-1
e-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 a 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.*

EPILOGUE TO "SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER." +
Well, having stoop'd to conquer with success,
And gain'd a husband without aid from dress,
Still, as a bar-maid, I could wish it too,
As I have conquer'd him to conquer you.
And let me say, for all your resolution,
That pretty bar-maids have done execution.
Our life is all a play, composed to please;
"We have our exits and our entrances."
The first act shows the simple country maid.
Harmless and young, of everything afraid,
Blushes when hired, and with unmeaning action—
"I hopes as how to give you satisfaction."
Her second act displays a livelier scene-
The unblushing bar-maid of a country inn,
Who whisks about the house, at market caters,
Talks louds, coquets the guests, and scolds the waiters.
Next the scene shifts to town, and there she soars,
The chop-house toast of ogling connoisseurs.
On 'squires and cits she there displays her arts,
And on the gridiron broils her lovers' hearts-
And as she smiles, her triumphs to complete,
Ev'n common-council-men forget to eat.
The fourth act shows her wedded to the 'squire,
And madam now begins to hold it higher;
Pretends to taste, at operas cries caro,

And quits her Nancy Dawson, for Che Faro;

*This Epilogue was given in MS. by Dr Goldsmith to Dr Percy (now bishop of Dromore). It was written for "She Stoops to Conquer," but "Colman," as Goldsmith says in a letter to Mr Cradock, "thought it too bad to be spoken."

+ Spoken March 15, 1773, by Mrs Bulkley in the character of Miss Hardcastle.