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 teased 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,)