253

SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF MISS HARDCASTLE.

WELL, having stooped to conquer with success,
And gained a husband without aid from dress,
Still as a bar-maid, I could wish it too,

As I have conquered him, to conquer you:
And let me say, for all your resolution,
That pretty bar-maids have done execution.
Our life is all a play, composed to please,
We have our exits and our entrances.
The first act shows the simple country maid,
Harmless and young, of every thing afraid;
Blushes when hired, and, with unmeaning action,
"I hopes as how to give you satisfaction."
Her second act displays a livelier scene-
Th' unblushing bar-maid of a country inn;
Who whisks about the house, at market caters,
Talks loud, coquets the guests, and scolds the waiters.
Next the scene shifts to town, and there she soars,
The chop-house toast of ogling connoisseurs.
On 'squires and cits she there displays her arts,
And on the gridiron broils her lover's hearts-
And as she smiles, her triumphs to complete,
Even common councilmen forget to eat.
The fourth act shows her wedded to the 'squire,
And madam now begins to hold it higher;
Pretends to taste, at operas cries Caro,

And quits her Nancy Dawson, for Che Faro:

Doats upon dancing, and in all her pride

Swims round the room, the Heinel of Cheapside:

Ogles and leers with artificial skill,

Till having lost in age the power to kill,

She sits all night at cards, and ogles at spadille.

Such, through our lives the eventful history——
The fifth and last act still remains for me.
The bar-maid now for your protection prays,
Turns female Barrister, and pleads for Bays..

EPILOGUE',

BY J. CRADOCK. ESQ.

TO BE SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF TONY LUMPKIN.

WELL- -now all's ended-and my comrades gone,
Pray what becomes of mother's nonly son?
A hopeful blade!-in town I'll fix my station,
And try to make a bluster in the nation;
As for my cousin Neville, I renounce her,
Off—in a crack—I'll carry big Bett Bouncer.
Why should not I in the great world appear?
I soon shall have a thousand pounds a-year!
No matter what a man may here inherit,
In London-'gad, they have some regard to spirit.
I see the horses prancing up the streets,
And big Bett Bouncer bobs to all she meets;
Then hoikes to jigs and pastimes every night—
Not to the plays-they say it an't polite;
'To Sadler's-Wells perhaps, or operas go,
And once, by chance, to the roratorio.
Thus here and there, for ever up and down,
We'll set the fashions too to half the town;
And then at auctions-money ne'er regard,
Buy pictures like the great, ten pounds a yard;
Zounds, we shall make these London gentry say,
We know what's damn'd genteel as well as they.

1 This came too late to be spoken.

END OF POEMS AND PLAYS.