“One night they hiss’d him in the accustom’d scene,
“I thought the play was damn’d—ah, woe is me!
“Another came, with scarce a pause between,
“They hiss’d again—in doleful plight was he.
“The third with dirges due, in sad array,
“The prompter’s sheep-bell rang our poet’s knell,
“Approach and read (none else will read) the play,
“If not, the epilogue may do as well.”
The Epilogue.
Here rests his head upon prompter’s shelf,