For works with similar titles, see Epilogue.
EPILOGUE.
The Play is at an end, but where's the Plot?
That circumstance our Poet Bayes forgot,
And we can boast, though 'tis a plotting Age,
No place is freer from it than the Stage.
The Ancients Plotted, though, and strove to please
With sence that might be understood with ease;
They every Scene with so much wit did store
That who brought any in, went out with more:
But this new way of wit does so surprise,
Men lose their wits in wond'ring where it lyes.
If it be true, that Monstrous births presage
The following mischiefs that afflicts the Age,
And sad disasters to the State proclaim;
Plays, without head or tail, may do the same.
Wherefore, for ours, and for the Kingdoms peace,
May this prodigious way of writing cease.
Let's have, at least, once in our lives, a time
When we may hear some Reason, not all Rhyme:
We have these ten years felt its Influence;
Pray let this prove a year of Prose and Sence.
That circumstance our Poet Bayes forgot,
And we can boast, though 'tis a plotting Age,
No place is freer from it than the Stage.
The Ancients Plotted, though, and strove to please
With sence that might be understood with ease;
They every Scene with so much wit did store
That who brought any in, went out with more:
But this new way of wit does so surprise,
Men lose their wits in wond'ring where it lyes.
If it be true, that Monstrous births presage
The following mischiefs that afflicts the Age,
And sad disasters to the State proclaim;
Plays, without head or tail, may do the same.
Wherefore, for ours, and for the Kingdoms peace,
May this prodigious way of writing cease.
Let's have, at least, once in our lives, a time
When we may hear some Reason, not all Rhyme:
We have these ten years felt its Influence;
Pray let this prove a year of Prose and Sence.
FINIS.