EPILOGUE, To the COMEDY of I'LL TELL YOU WHAT! Spoken by Miss FARREN. August, 1785

Male Criticks applaud to the skies the Male Scribblers; When a Woman attempts they turn carpers and nibblers: But a true patriot Female, there's nothing so vexes As this haughty pre-eminence claim'd 'twixt the sexes. The free spirit revolts at each hard proposition, And meets the whole system with loud opposition. Men, 'tis true, in their noddles, huge treasures may hoard; But the heart of a Woman with Passions is stor'd: With Passions, not copied from Latin or Greek, Which the language of Nature, in plain English speak. Girls, who grieve, or rejoice, from true feeling as I do, Never dream of Calypso, or Helen, or Dido.

To the end of our life, from the hour we begin it, Woman's Fate all depends on the Critical Minute! A Minute, unknown to the dull pedant tribe, And which never feeling, they never describe. 'Tis no work of Science, or sparkle of Wit, But a point which mere Nature must teach us to hit; And which, in the changes and turns of my story, A weak Woman's Pen has to-night laid before ye. And say, ye grave Prudes! gay Coquettes too, ah, say, What a Critical Minute was mine in the Play! Here Poverty, Famine, and Shame, and Reproach! There Plenty and Ease, and a Lord, and a Coach! But perhaps our Bard held Mrs. Euston too mean, And conceiv'd her disgrace would but lower the Scene: Let us then, better pleas'd, to acquit than convict her, On the ground of High Life, sketch the very same Picture!

Imagine some Fair plung'd in modish distress! Her wants not less than mine, nor her agony less! At Hazard, suppose, an unfortunate cast Has swept her last guinea, nay more than her last! Her diamonds all mortgag'd, her equipage sold, Her husband undone, genteel friends looking cold! At her feet his sweet person Lord Foppington throws, The most handsome of Nobles, the richest of Beaux! At once too his love and his bounty dispenses, Sooths with Thousands her grief, lulls with Flatt'ry her senses! Alas! what a Minute! ah! what can be done? All means must be tried, and our Drama shows one. Let Papa in that Minute, that so frowns upon her, Redeem the vile debts that encumber her Honour! Let Papa in that Minute, that teems with undoing, Step in, like my Father, and mar a Lord's wooing! Let her know, as I've known, all the horror that's in it, And feel the true force of the Critical Minute!

Thus wishes our Bard, as she bids me declare; And such is my wish—By mine Honour I swear!