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.
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 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 Oh! fatal news to tell: Their hands are only lent to the Heinel.1
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.
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; 1 [A favorite dancer.]
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.
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 case:' Doctors, who cough and answer every misfortuner, '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.
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?
And now, with late repentance,
Unepilogued 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 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 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 dotes 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,
――――
Come here to saunter, having made his bets,
Finds his lost senses out, and pays his debts.
The Mohawk, too, with angry phrases stor'd,
As 'Dam'me, sir,' and 'Sir, I wear a sword,'
Here lesson'd for a while, 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 - 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 the 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.1
1 Presented in MS., among other papers, to Dr. Percy, by the Poet, and first printed in Miscellaneous Works, 1801.-P. C.
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