As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure <br />To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure; <br />Thus on the stage, our play-wrights still depend <br />For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend, <br />Who knows each art of coaxing up the town, <br />And make full many a bitter pill go down. <br />Conscious of this, our bard has gone about, <br />And teas'd each rhyming friend to help him out. <br />'An Epilogue - things can't go on without it; <br />It could not fail, would you but set about it.' <br />'Young man,' cries one - a bard laid up in clover - <br />'Alas, young man, my writing days are over; <br />Let boys play tricks, and kick the straw; not I: <br />Your brother Doctor there, perhaps, may try.' <br />'What I? dear Sir,' the Doctor interposes <br />'What plant my thistle, Sir, among his roses! <br />No, no; I've other contests to maintain; <br />To-night I head our troops at Warwick Lane: <br />Go, ask your manager.' 'Who, me? Your pardon; <br />Those things are not our forte at Covent Garden.' <br />Our Author's friends, thus plac'd at happy distance, <br />Give him good words indeed, but no assistance. <br />As some unhappy wight, at some new play, <br />At the Pit door stands elbowing a way, <br />While oft, with many a smile, and many a shrug, <br />He eyes the centre, where his friends sit snug; <br />His simp'ring friends, with pleasure in their eyes, <br />Sink as he sinks, and as he rises rise; <br />He nods, they nod; he cringes, they grimace; <br />But not a soul will budge to give him place. <br />Since then, unhelp'd, our bard must now conform <br />'To 'bide the pelting of this pitiless storm' - <br />Blame where you must, be candid where you can; <br />And be each critic the 'Good Natur'd Man'.<br /><br />Oliver Goldsmith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/epilogue-to-the-good-natur-d-man/
