THE EPILOGUE

Now all is done, ye learn’d spectators, tell
Have we not play’d our parts extremely well? 
We think we did, but if you do complain,
We’re all content to act the play again: 
’Tis but three hours or thereabouts, at most,
And time well spent in school cannot be lost. 
But what makes you frown, you gentlemen above? 
We guess’d long since you all desired to move: 
But that’s in vain, for we’ll not let a man stir,
Who does not take up Plautus first, and conster,[1]
Him we’ll dismiss, that understands the play;
He who does not, i’faith, he’s like to stay. 
Though this new method may provoke your laughter,
To act plays first, and understand them after;
We do not care, for we will have our humour,
And will try you, and you, and you, sir, and one or two more. 
Why don’t you stir? there’s not a man will budge;
How much they’ve read, I leave you all to judge.

[Footnote 1:  The vulgar pronunciation of the word construe is here intended.—­W.  E. B.]

THE SONG

A parody on the popular song beginning,
“My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent.”

My time, O ye Grattans, was happily spent,
When Bacchus went with me, wherever I went;
For then I did nothing but sing, laugh, and jest;
Was ever a toper so merrily blest? 
But now I so cross, and so peevish am grown,
Because I must go to my wife back to town;
To the fondling and toying of “honey,” and “dear,”
And the conjugal comforts of horrid small beer. 
  My daughter I ever was pleased to see
Come fawning and begging to ride on my knee: 
My wife, too, was pleased, and to the child said,
Come, hold in your belly, and hold up your head: 
But now out of humour, I with a sour look,
Cry, hussy, and give her a souse with my book;
And I’ll give her another; for why should she play,
Since my Bacchus, and glasses, and friends, are away? 
  Wine, what of thy delicate hue is become,
That tinged our glasses with blue, like a plum? 
Those bottles, those bumpers, why do they not smile,
While we sit carousing and drinking the while? 
Ah, bumpers, I see that our wine is all done,
Our mirth falls of course, when our Bacchus is gone. 
Then since it is so, bring me here a supply;
Begone, froward wife, for I’ll drink till I die.

A NEW YEAR’S GIFT FOR THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK’S GIVEN HIM AT QUILCA.  BY SHERIDAN 1723

How few can be of grandeur sure! 
The high may fall, the rich be poor. 
The only favourite at court,
To-morrow may be Fortune’s sport;
For all her pleasure and her aim
Is to destroy both power and fame. 
  Of this the Dean is an example,
No instance is more plain and ample. 
The world did never yet produce,
For courts a man of greater use.