University of Virginia Library

EPILOGUE.

VVho would not Damn a silly Rhiming Fop,
When there is scarce a Fore-man of a Shop,
With sense of Animal, and face of Stoick,
But Courts poor Tawdry Sempstress in Heroick;
Will make ye Rhimes on Cakes and Ale; Reherse
A Holy-days Treat, at Islington, in Verse?
Rhiming, which once had got so much your passion,
When it became the Lumber of the Nation,
Like Vests, your seaven years Love, grew out of fashion.
Great Subjects, and Grave Poets please no more:
Their high strains now to humble Farce must lower.
So strutting Gallant, in his burly Vest,
And in his loose full-bodyed Tunick drest;
All on a sudden to Thin-gutted Paunch,
A slim French Jerkin, Breeches close to Haunch,
Was grown so changed, you'd swear the slender Imp
Was dwindled from a Lobster to a Shrimp.
And as with Habits, so 'tis with the Stage.
Fashion is all the Beauty of the Age.
And yet though (thanks be to our happy Stars)
We've Fools enough, good Comedies are scarce.
And Faith 'tis very strange, Fops being so plenty,
There's not one hits your Pictures, right in twenty.
And gad the Reason I have thought upon:
To that Variety of Fop you run,
Your Features change e're half your Picture's done.
Be but more Constant, Fool but on one way,
And sit but out the finishing a Play,
And Gentlemen, my honest word I'le pawn,
You may be better pleas'd, and better drawn.