Ang. It is an unreasonable accusation, that you lay upon our sex. You tax us with injustice, only to co.. ver your own want of merit. You would all have the reward of love; but few have the constancy to stay till it becomes your due. Men are generally hypocrites and infidels; they pretend to worship, but have neither zeal nor faith. How few, like Valentine, would persevere even to martyrdom, and sacri. fice their interest to their constancy! In admiring me, you misplace the novelty.

The miracle to-day is, that we find

A lover true; not that a woman's kind.

[Exeunt omnes.

EPILOGUE.

SURE Providence at first design'd this place
To be the player's refuge in distress;

For still, in every storm, they all run hither,
As to a shed, that shields them from the weather.
But thinking of this change which last befel us,
It's like what I have heard our poets tell us:

For when behind our scenes their suits are pleading,
To help their love, sometimes they shew their reading;
And, wanting ready cash to pay for hearts,
They top their learning on us, and their parts.
Once of philosophers they told us stories,
Whom, as I think they called-Py-Pythagories,
I'm sure 'tis some such Latin name they give them,
And we, who know no better, must believe them.
Now to these men (say they) such souls were given,
That, after death, ne'er went to hell nor heaven,
But liv'd, I know not how, in beasts; and then,
When many years were past, in men again.
Methinks, we players resemble such a soul,
That, does from bodies; we, from houses stroll.
Thus Aristotle's soul, of old that was,
May now be damn'd to animate an ass;
Or in this very house, for ought we know,

Is doing painful penance in some beau:

N

And thus our audience, which did once resort
To shining theatres, to see our sport,
Now find us toss'd into a tennis court.

These walls but t'other day were fill'd with noise
Of roaring gamesters, and your damme boys;
Then bounding balls and rackets they encompast;
And now they're fill'd with jests, and flights, and bombast!
I vow, I don't much like this transmigration,

Strolling from place to place, by circulation;

Grant Heaven, we don't return to our first station!
I know not what these think; but, for my part,
I can't reflect without an aching heart,

How we should end in, our original, a cart.
But we can't fear, since you're so good to save us,
That you have only set us up to leave us.
Thus, from the past, we hope for future grace,
I beg it-

And some here know I have a begging face.

Then pray continue this your kind behaviour;
For a clear stage won't do, without your favour.

THE END.