EPILOGUE

BY DR. GARTH.

SPOKEN BY MRS. PORTER.

What odd fantastic things we women do!
Who would not listen when young lovers woo?
But die a maid, yet have the choice of two!
Ladies are often cruel to their cost;

To give you pain, themselves they punish most.
Vows of virginity should well be weighed ;

Too oft they're cancelled, though in convents made.
Would you revenge such rash resolves-you may :
Be spiteful-and believe the thing we say;
We hate you when you're easily said nay.
How needless, if you knew us, were your fears!
Let love have eyes, and beauty will have ears.

Our hearts are form'd as you yourselves would choose,
Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse ;
We give to merit, and to wealth we sell;
He sighs with most success that settles well.
The woes of wedlock with the joys we mix:
'Tis best repenting in a coach and six.

Blame not our conduct, since we but pursue
Those lively lessons we have learn'd from you:
Your breasts no more the fire of beauty warms,
But wicked wealth usurps the power of charms;

What pains to get the gaudy thing you hate!
To swell in show, and be a wretch in state!
At plays you ogle, at the ring you bow;
Even churches are no sanctuaries now:
There, golden idols all your vows receive,
She is no goddess that has nought to give.
Oh, may once more the happy age appear,
When words were artless, and the thoughts sincere ;
When gold and grandeur were unenvied things,
And courts less coveted than groves and springs.
Love then shall only mourn when truth complains,
And constancy feel transport in its chains;
Sighs with success their own soft anguish tell,
And eyes shall utter what the lips conceal:
Virtue again to its bright station climb,
And beauty fear no enemy but time;
The fair shall listen to desert alone,

And every Lucia find a Cato's son.

THE

DRUMMER,

OR

THE HAUNTED, HOUSE.

A COMEDY.

-Falsis terroribus implet

Ut magus.

HOR.

PREFACE.

HAVING recommended this play to the town, and delivered the copy of it to the bookseller, I think myself obliged to give some account of it.

It had been some years in the hands of the author, and falling under my perusal, I thought so well of it, that I persuaded him to make some additions and alterations to it, and let it appear upon the stage. I own I was very highly pleased with it, and liked it the better, for the want of those studied similes and repartees which we, who have writ before him, have thrown into our plays, to indulge and gain upon a false taste that has prevailed for many years in the British theatre. I believe the author would have condescended to fall into this way a little more than he has, had he, before the writing of it, been often present at theatrical representations. I was confirmed in my thoughts of the play, by the opinion of better judges to whom it was communicated, who observed that the scenes were drawn after Moliere's manner, and that an easy and natural vein of humour ran through the whole.

I do not question but the reader will discover this, and see many beauties that escaped the audience; the touches being too delicate for every taste in a popular assembly. My brother-sharers were of opinion, at the first reading of