Epilogue to "The Good Natured Man"

As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure / To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure; / Thus on the stage, our play-wrights still depend / For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend, / Who knows each art of coaxing up the town, / And make full many a bitter pill go down. / Conscious of this, our bard has gone about, / And teas'd each rhyming friend to help him out. / ‘An Epilogue-things can't go on without it; / It could not fail, would you but set about it. ' / ‘Young man,' cries one-a bard laid up in clover- / ‘Alas, young man, my writing days are over; / Let boys play tricks, and kick the straw; not I: / Your brother Doctor there, perhaps, may try. ' / ‘What I? dear Sir,' the Doctor interposes / ‘What plant my thistle, Sir, among his roses! / No, no; I've other contests to maintain; / To-night I head our troops at Warwick Lane: / Go, ask your manager. ' ‘Who, me? Your pardon; / Those things are not our forte at Covent Garden.'

Our Author's friends, thus plac'd at happy distance, / Give him good words indeed, but no assistance. / As some unhappy wight, at some new play, / At the Pit door stands elbowing a way, / While oft, with many a smile, and many a shrug, / He eyes the centre, where his friends sit snug; / His simp'ring friends, with pleasure in their eyes, / Sink as he sinks, and as he rises rise; / He nods, they nod; he cringes, they grimace; / But not a soul will budge to give him place. / Since then, unhelp'd, our bard must now conform / ‘To 'bide the pelting of this pitiless storm'- / Blame where you must, be candid where you can; / And be each critic the _Good Natur'd Man._