From the date of the various circumstances referred to, this Epilogue seems to have been spoken in 1681-2.
We act by fits and starts, like drowning men,
But just peep up, and then pop down again.
Let those who call us wicked change their sense,
For never men lived more on Providence.
Not lottery cavaliers[364] are half so poor,
Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore;
Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents
Of the three last ungiving parliaments;[365]
}