I told him what it was to be a stroller;
How free we acted, and had no comptroller: 
In every town we wait on Mr. Mayor,
First get a license, then produce our ware;
We sound a trumpet, or we beat a drum: 
Huzza! (the schoolboys roar) the players are come;
And then we cry, to spur the bumpkins on,
Gallants, by Tuesday next we must be gone. 
I told him in the smoothest way I could,
All this, and more, yet it would do no good. 
But Elrington, tears falling from his cheeks,
He that has shone with Betterton and Wilks,[2]
To whom our country has been always dear,
Who chose to leave his dearest pledges here,
Owns all your favours, here intends to stay,
And, as a stroller, act in every play: 
And the whole crew this resolution takes,
To live and die all strollers, for your sakes;
Not frighted with an ignominious name,
For your displeasure is their only shame. 
  A pox on Elrington’s majestic tone! 
Now to a word of business in our own. 
  Gallants, next Thursday night will be our last: 
Then without fail we pack up for Belfast. 
Lose not your time, nor our diversion miss,
The next we act shall be as good as this.

[Footnote 1:  Thomas Elrington, born in 1688, an English actor of great reputation at Drury Lane from 1709 till 1712, when he was engaged by Joseph Ashbury, manager of the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.  After the death of Ashbury, whose daughter he had married, he succeeded to the management of the theatre, and enjoyed high social and artistic consideration.  He died in July, 1732.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  Two celebrated actors:  Betterton in tragedy, and Wilks in comedy.  See “The Tatler,” Nos. 71, 157, 167, 182, and notes, edit. 1786; Colley Cibber’s “Apology “; and “Dictionary of National Biography.”—­W.  E. B.]

EPILOGUE[1]

TO MR. HOPPY’S BENEFIT-NIGHT, AT SMOCK-ALLEY

HOLD! hold, my good friends; for one moment, pray stop ye,
I return ye my thanks, in the name of poor Hoppy. 
He’s not the first person who never did write,
And yet has been fed by a benefit-night. 
The custom is frequent, on my word I assure ye,
In our famed elder house, of the Hundreds of Drury. 
But then you must know, those players still act on
Some very good reasons, for such benefaction. 
  A deceased poet’s widow, if pretty, can’t fail;
From Cibber she holds, as a tenant in tail. 
Your emerited actors, and actresses too,
For what they have done (though no more they can do)
And sitters, and songsters, and Chetwood and G——­,
And sometimes a poor sufferer in the South Sea;
A machine-man, a tire-woman, a mute, and a spright,
Have been all kept from starving by a benefit-night. 
  Thus, for Hoppy’s bright merits, at length we have found
That he must have of us ninety-nine and one pound,