EPILOGUE1

To be spoken in the character of TONY LUMPKIN

BY J. CRADOCK ESQ.2

WELL-now all's ended-and my comrades gone,
Pray what becomes of mother's nonly son?
A hopeful blade I-in town I'll fix my station,
And try to make a bluster in the nation.
As for my cousin Neville, I renounce her,
Off-in a crack-I'll carry big Bet Bouncer.
Why should not I in the great world appear?
I soon shall have a thousand pounds a year;
No matter what a man may here inherit,
In London-'gad, they've some regard for spirit.
I see the horses prancing up the streets,
And big Bet Bouncer bobs to all she meets;
Then hoikes to jiggs and pastimes ev'ry night-
Not to the plays-they say it a'n't polite,
To Sadler's Wells perhaps, or Operas go,
And once by chance, to the roratorio.
Thus here and there, for ever up and down,
We'll set the fashions too, to half the town;
And then at auctions-money ne'er regard,
Buy pictures like the great, ten pounds a yard :
Zounds, we shall make these London gentry say,
We know what's damned genteel, as well as they.

"This came too late to be spoken" (Goldsmith's note.)]
See note to p. 75.1

A popular pleasure garden by the New River Head, the scene of Hogarth's Evening.]

292

SCENE FROM THE GRUMBLER:

A FARCE

[The Grumbler, never printed, was adapted by Goldsmith from Le Grondeur of Brueys and Palaprat, or rather from Sir C. Sedley's version of that play, produced in 1702. It was written for John Quick, (d. 1831) the actor of "Tony Lumpkin," and produced at his benefit, in May, 1773. Prior printed the accompanying scene in the Miscellaneous Works, 1837, from the Licenser's сору. exhibits the final expedient adopted by the heroine, who is in love with Sourby's son, to free herself from the unwelcome proposals of the father.]

It