Till Love and Glory no more proofs can give
  Of what they can bestow, or you receive.

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE,

By a Woman.

We charged you boldly in our first advance, And gave the Onset a la mode de France, As each had been a Joan of Orleance.

Like them our Heat as soon abated too; Alas we could not vanquish with a Show, Much more than that goes to the conquering you.

The Trial though will recompense the Pain,
It having wisely taught us how to reign;
’Tis Beauty only can our Power maintain.

But yet, as tributary Kings, we own
It is by you that we possess that Throne,
Where had we Victors been, we’ad reign’d alone.

And we have promised what we could not do;
A fault, methinks, might be forgiven too,
Since ’tis but what we learnt of some of you.

But we are upon equal treatment yet,
For neither conquer, since we both submit;
You to our Beauty bow, we to your Wit_.

THE EMPEROR OF THE MOON.

ARGUMENT.

Doctor Baliardo, a Neapolitan philosopher, has so applied himself to the study of the Moon, and is enraptured to such an extent with the mysteries of that orb, that he has come steadfastly to believe in a lunar world, peopled, ruled and regulated like the earth.  This wholly fills and absorbs his every waking thought, and, in consequence, he denies his daughter Elaria and his niece Bellemante to their respective lovers, the Viceroy’s two nephews, Don Cinthio and Don Charmante, as being men of men of mere terrestial mould.  The girls are, however, secretly assisted in their amours by Scaramouch, the doctor’s man, who is himself a rival of Harlequin, Cinthio’s valet, for the hand of Mopsophil, duenna to the young ladies.  Harlequin, hoping to find his way to his mistress, gets to Bellemante’s chamber but when she appears conceals himself.  The doctor, however, who has been hastily summoned to the bedside of his brother, reported dying, returns a moment after he has set out for a key which has been accidently dropped from his bunch and finds Cinthio and Elaria.  The gallant can only escape by pretending to be a lunatic brought to the house for medical treatment and cure.  But during the doctor’s subsequent absence, whilst the two lovers are, as they suppose, securely entertaining their mistresses, the father is suddenly heard to return.  For the moment they evade him by feigning to be figures in a rich tapestry (their masquing habits aiding the trick), which Scaramouch declares he has just purchased.  But this sham being discovered, Scaramouch runs off with the candles and all slip away in the darkness and confusion, leaving him to return in his shirt as newly risen from bed.  The doctor is bawling for help when the wily servant totters out yawning and rubbing his eyes to explain