Page:Songs compleat, pleasant and divertive (Wit and mirth or, Pills to purge melancholy).djvu/368

 An EPILOGUE

To the first Part of. By , Riding upon his Ass.

'MONGST our Fore-fathers, that pure Wit profest, There's an old Proverb, That two Heads are best. Dapple and I have therefore jogg'd this way, Through sheer good Nature, to defend this Play: Tho' I've no Friends, yet he (as proof may shew) May have Relations here for ought I know. For in a Crowd, where various Heads are addle, May many an Ass be, that ne'er wore a Saddle. 'Tis then for him that I this Speech intend, Because I know he is the Poet's Friend; And, as 'tis said, a parlous Ass once spoke, When Crab-tree Cudgel did his Rage provoke; So if ye are not civil, 'dsbud, I fear, He'll speak again And tell the Ladies every Dapple here. Take good Advice then, and with kindness win him, Tho' he looks simply, you don't know what's in him: He has shrewd Parts, and proper for his Place, And yet no Plotter, you may see by's Face; He tells no Lyes, nor does Sedition vent, Nor ever Brays against the Government. Then for his Garb he's like the Spanish Nation, Still the old Mode, he never changes Fashion; His sober Carriage too you've seen to Day, But for's Religion, troth, I cannot say Whether for Mason, Burgis, Muggleton, The House with Steeple, or the House with none: I rather think he's of your Pagan Crew, For he ne'er goes to Church no more than you. Some that would, by his Looks, guess his Opinion, Say, he's a Papish; others, a Socinian, But I believe him, if the Truth were known, As th' rest of the Town-Asses are, of none;