But I will rally, and combat the ruiner :

Not a look, nor a smile shall my passion discover.
She that gives all to the false one pursuing her,

Makes but a penitent, and loses a lover.*

EPILOGUE,

SPOKEN BY MR. LEE LEWES, IN THE CHARACTER OF HARLEQUIN,

AT HIS BENEFIT.

Hold! Prompter, hold ! a word before your nonsense:
I'd speak a word or two, to ease my conscience.
My pride forbids it ever should be said,
My heels eclips'd the honors of my head;
That I found humor in a piebald vest,
Or ever thought that jumping was a jest.

[Takes off his mask.
Whence, and what art thou, visionary birth?
Nature disowns, and reason scorns thy mirth;
In thy black aspect every passion sleeps,
The joy that dimples, and the woe that weeps.
How hast thou fill’d the scene with all thy brood
Of fools pursuing, and of fools pursued !
Whose ins and outs no ray of sense discloses,
Whose only plot it is to break our noses ;
Whilst from below the trap-door demons rise,
And from above the dangling deities.

[This air was revived and vulgarized in a song sung by the late Mr. Johnstone in Colman's farce of “ The Wağs of Windsor.” Mr. Moore has brought it back into good company; it is to be found in the ninth number of his “ Irish Melodies.”—CROKER, Boswell, vol. ii. p. 207.]

+ [These were probably the last verses written by Goldsmith. They were spoken on the 28th of April 1774, twenty-four days after his death.]

8*

VOL IV.

And shall I mix in this unhallow'd crew?
May rosin'd lightning blast me if I do!
No, I will act, I'll vindicate the stage:
Shakspeare himself shall feel my tragic rage.
Off ! off! vile trappings! a new passion reigns !
The madd’ning monarch revels in my veins.
Oh! for a Richard's voice to catch the theme:
“Give me another horse! bind up my wounds !-soft—'twas but a

dream."
Ay, 'twas but a dream, for now there's no retreating,
If I cease Harlequin, I cease from eating.
'Twas thus that Æsop's stag, a creature blameless,
Yet something vain, like one that shall be nameless,
Once on the margin of a fountain stood,
And cavill’d at his image in the flood.
“The deuce confound," he cries, "these drumstick shanks,
They never have my gratitude nor thanks;
They're perfectly disgraceful! strike me dead!
But for a head, yes, yes, I have a head.
How piercing is that eye! how sleek that brow!
My horns !—I'm told horns are the fashion now."
Whilst thus he spoke, astonish'd, to his view,
Near, and more near, the hounds and huntsmen drew;
Hoicks! hark forward! came thund'ring from behind,
He bounds aloft, outstrips the fleeting wind :
He quits the woods, and tries the beaten ways;
He starts, he pants, he takes the circling maze.
At length, his silly head, so priz'd before,
Is taught his former folly to deplore;
Whilst his strong limbs conspire to set him free,
And at one bound be saves himself, like me.

[Taking a jump through the stage door.

DR A MAS.

THE

GOOD-NATURED MAN;

A

COMEDY:

AS PERFORMED AT THE

THEATRE-ROYAL, COVENT GARDEN.