Much time and trouble this poor play has cost;
And, ’faith, I doubted once the cause was lost. 
Yet no one man was meant, nor great, nor small;
Our poets, like frank gamesters, threw at all. 
They took no single aim:—­
But, like bold boys, true to their prince, and hearty,
Huzza’d, and fired broadsides at the whole party. 
Duels are crimes; but, when the cause is right,
In battle every man is bound to fight. 
For what should hinder me to sell my skin,     }
Dear as I could, if once my hand were in?      }
Se defendendo never was a sin.               }
’Tis a fine world, my masters! right or wrong,
The Whigs must talk, and Tories hold their tongue. 
They must do all they can,
But we, forsooth, must bear a christian mind;
And fight, like boys, with one hand tied behind;
Nay, and when one boy’s down, ’twere wond’rous wise,
To cry,—­box fair, and give him time to rise. 
When fortune favours, none but fools will dally;        }
Would any of you sparks, if Nan, or Mally,              }
Tip you the inviting wink, stand, shall I, shall I?     }
A Trimmer cried, (that heard me tell this story)
Fie, mistress Cook, ’faith you’re too rank a Tory! 
Wish not Whigs hanged, but pity their hard cases;
You women love to see men make wry faces.—­
Pray, sir, said I, don’t think me such a Jew;
I say no more, but give the devil his due.—­
Lenitives, says he, suit best with our condition.—­
Jack Ketch, says I, is an excellent physician.—­
I love no blood.—­Nor I, sir, as I breathe;
But hanging is a fine dry kind of death.—­
We Trimmers are for holding all things even.—­
Yes; just like him that hung ’twixt hell and heaven.—­
Have we not had men’s lives enough already?—­
Yes, sure:  but you’re for holding all things steady. 
Now since the weight hangs all on one side, brother,
You Trimmers should, to poize it, hang on t’other. 
Damned neuters, in their middle way of steering,
Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red-herring: 
Not Whigs, nor Tories they; nor this, nor that;
Not birds, nor beasts; but just a kind of bat: 
A twilight animal, true to neither cause,
With Tory wings, but Whigish teeth and claws[2].

Footnotes: 
1.  There is in Mr Bindley’s collection another Epilogue, which appears
   to have been originally subjoined to the “Duke of Guise.”  It is
   extremely coarse; and as the author himself suppressed it, the
   editor will not do his better judgment the injustice to revive it.

2.  The Trimmers, a body small and unpopular, as must always be the
   case with those, who in violent times declare for moderate and
   temporising measures, were headed by the ingenious and politic
   Halifax.  He had much of the confidence, at least of the countenance
   of Charles, who was divided betwixt tenderness for Monmouth, and
   love of ease, on the one hand, and, on the other, desire of
   arbitrary power, and something like fear of the duke of York. 
   Halifax repeatedly prevented each of these parties from subjugating