EPILOGUE.

WRITTEN BY MR. BUDGELL,

Of the Inner Temple.

Spoken by Andromache.

I Hope you'll own, that with becoming art,

I've play'd my game,

and topp'd the widow's part.
My spouse, poor man, could not live out the play,
But dy'd commodiously on his wedding-day;
While I, his relict, made at one bold fling,
Myself a princess, and young Sty a king.

You, ladies, who protract a lover's pain,

And hear your servants sigh whole years in vain;
Which of you all would not on marriage venture,
Might she so soon upon her jointure enter ?

'Twas a strange scape! Had Pyrrhus liv'd till now, I had been finely hamper'd in my vow.

To die by one's own hand, and fly the charms
Of love and life in a young monarch's arms!
'Twere an hard fate-ere I had undergone it,
I might have took one night--to think upon it.

But why, you'll say, was all this grief exprest
For a first husband, laid long since at rest ?

Why so much coldness to my kind protector ?

-Ah, ladies! had you known the good man Hector!
Homer will tell you, (or I'm misinform'd,)

That, when enrag'd, the Grecian camp he storm'd;
To break the ten-fold barriers of the gate,
He threw a stone of such prodigious weight
As no two men could lift, not even of those,
Who in that age of thund'ring metals rose:
-It would have sprain'd a dozen modern beaux.

At length, howe'er, I laid my weeds aside, And sunk the widow in the well-dress'd bride.

In

you it still remains to grace the play,

And bless with joy my coronation day;
Take, then, ye circles of the brave and fair,
The fatherless and widow to your care.