EPILOGUE.

WRITTEN BY DR. GARTH.

WHAT odd fantastic things we women do?
Who wou'd not listen when young lovers wooe?
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 weigh'd;

Too oft they're cancell'd, though in convents made.
Wou'd 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 chuse,
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 learnt from you.
Your breasts no more the fire of beauty warms,
But wicked wealth usurps the pow'r of charms,

What pains to get the gaudy things you hate,
To swell in show, and be a wretch state.
At plays you ogle, at the ring you bow ;
E'en 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 sinceré :
When gold and grandeur were unenvy'd 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,
shall utter what the lips conceal:

And eyes
Virtue again to its bright station climb,
And beauty fear no enemy
but time;

The fair shall listen to desert alone,
And ev'ry Lucia find a Cato's son.

THE END.

THE

DISTREST MOTHER.

TRAGEDY.

TRANSLATED BY

AMBROSE PHILIPS,

FROM THE ANDROMAQUE OF RACINE.

ADAPTED FOR

THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION,

AS PERFORMED AT THE

THEATRES-ROYAL,

DRURY-LANE, AND COVENT-GARDEN.

REGULATED FROM THE PROMPT-BOOKS,
By Permission of the Managers.

"The Lines distinguished by inverted Commas, are omitted in the Representation.''

LONDON:

Printed for the Proprietors, under the Direction of JOHN BELL, British Library, STRAND,

Bookseller to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

M DCC XCI.

ΤΟ

HER GRACE

THE

DUTCHESS OF MONTAGUE.

MADAM,

THIS tragedy, which I do myself the honour to dedicate to your Grace, is formed upon an original, which passes for the most finished piece, in this kind of writing, that has ever been produced in the French language. The principal action and main distress of the play is of such a nature, as seems more immediately to claim the patronage of a lady: And, when I consider the great and shining characters of antiquity, that are celebrated in it, I am naturally directed to inscribe it to a person, whose illustrious father has, by a long series of glorious actions, (for the service of his country, and in defence of the liberties of Europe,) not only surpassed the generals of his own time, but equalled the greatess heroes of former ages. The name of Hector could not be more terrible among the Greeks, than that of the duke of Marlborough has been to the French.

The refined taste you are known to have in all entertainments for the diversion of the public, and the