Epilogue to the Same

The muse of Shakespeare's compliments! —A card
T'excuse this evening's enterprizing bard!
Great his presumption, to confess the truth:
But, as he pleads the passion of his youth,
Together with the magick of her charms,
Attracting him resistless to her arms;
Tho' somewhat by surprize, she owns, she suffer'd,
Yet, as no actual violence was offer'd,
She's willing, if the audience should agree,
For this one time to set th' offender free.
We women soon forgive, if not forget,
The crimes our beauties make the men commit,
Especially when once we're past our prime,
And Shakespeare's muse, like me, 's the worse for time.
For, tho' she charm with fancy ever young,
Tho heav'nly musick dwell upon her tongue,
Lost many an artless smile and dimple sleek,
Which sat alluring on her virgin cheek;
Beauties, that faded on the gazer's eye,
And no cold-cream of comment can supply.
As for what Merc'ry in the prologue told ye;
Pray, let not that from clemency with-hold ye.
That Hermes was of old a lying blade,
And practic'd in imposture, as his trade;
The patron he, or classic lore deceives,
Of cheats, forestallers, higglers, hucksters, thieves.

Besides, —to tell you a stage-trick of ours—
But you'll not spread the secret out of doors,—
The man was no more Mercury, than I am
Queen Hecuba, the wife of Trojan Priam.
A messenger from Phoebus! He a god!
I can assure you all, 'twas Mr. Dodd;
His dropping from the clouds, was all a sham;
And his pretended errand but a flam.
We've heathen gods of paste-board, made to fly
On hempen cords across the painted sky;
Those canvass clouds, that dangle there above,
Inveloping the throne itself of Jove!

His tale fictitious too, tho' told so glib;
For take it on my word, 'twas all a fib.
Old Falstaff in Elysium!—To my thinking,
So great his natural tendency to sinking,
That to the shades if he had once descended,
To bring him back not Atlas had pretended.
Dramatic sprites (at least they tell me so)
Dwell not with saints above, nor devils below:
But, form'd th' imagination to engage,
During their short-liv'd passage o'er the stage,
As mere ideal characters exist,
And stand as cyphers mark'd on nature's list;
To genius giv'n a delegated power
To form these transient beings of an hour;
Which, from this mimic world whene'er they go,
Are free to range in fancy's pimlico:
A limbo large and broad; which in the schools
Is call'd by some the paradise of fools.
Ferae naturae there, their preservation
Is purchas'd by no game association;
The poaching plagiary alone denied
A privilege, granted to each bard beside;
Who, tho' a cottager, to try his skill,
May shoot, or course, or hunt them down at will;
In his own paddock may the strays receive,
And scorn to ask a lordly owner's leave.

Not but that here, the author of the play,
By me begs leave submissively to say,
"None more than he reveres great Shakespeare's name,
"Or glows with zeal to vindicate his fame."