EPILOGUE. Υου see the tripping dame could find no favour ; There's dreadful dealings with eloping wives: Who snores, at night, supinely by her side; Well may the cuckold-making tribe find grace, For carnivals in town to keep a tedious Lent; A TRAGEDY. BY JOHN HOME. ADAPTED FOR THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION, AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRES-ROYAL DRURY-LANE AND COVENT-GARDEN. REGULATED FROM THE PROMPT-BOOK, "The Lines distinguished by inverted Commas, are omitted in the Representation." LONDON: Printed for the Proprietors, under the Direction of JOHN BELL, British-Library, STRAND, Bookseller to His Royal Highness the PRINCE of WALES. M DCC XCI. TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS. GEORGE PRINCE OF WALES. SIR, IN Dedications, especially those which Poets write, Mankind expect to find little Sentiment, and less Truth. A grateful Imagination adorns its Benefactor with every Virtue, and even flatters with Sincerity. Hence the Portrait of each Patron of the Muses is drawn with the same Outline, and finished as a Model of Perfection. Instructed by the Errors of others, I presume not to make the Panegyrick of the Prince of WALES, nor to extol the Patronage of Literature as the most shining Quality of a Prince. Your Royal Highness will permit me to mention one sort of Patronage which can never be praised too much; that, I mean, which extending its Influence to the whole Society, forms and excites the Genius of Individuals by exalting the Spirit of the State. Institutions, that revive, in a great and highly civilized People those Virtues of Courage, Manhood, and Love of their Country, which are most apt, in the Progress of Refinement, to decay, produce at the same |