Turn, my fairest, turn, if ever Yes, I shall die, hu, hu, hu, hu! Yes, I must die, ho, ho, ho, ho! MRS. BULKLEY. Da Capo. Let all the old pay homage to your merit; Of French friseurs, and nosegays, justly vain, 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 travellers your 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, 1 [A favorite dancer.] When you with your bagpipes are ready to play, With Sandy, and Sawney, and Jockey, MRS. BULKLEY. 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. AIR BALLINAMONY. MISS CATLEY. Ye brave Irish lads, hark away to the crack, For sure I don't wrong you, you seldom are slack, back. For you're always polite and attentive, 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, MRS. BULKLEY. 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. 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 Come here to saunter, having made his bets, How can the piece expect or hope for quarter? 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. |