_Em._ (_comes up to_ ORLANDO.) Take comfort, thou poor wretch! I'll not appear Against thee, nor shall Rivers; but blood must, Blood will appear; there's no concealing blood. What's that? my brother's ghost--it vanishes: [_Catches hold of_ RIVERS. Stay, take me with thee, take me to the skies; I have thee fast: thou shalt not go without me. But hold--may we not take the murd'rer with us? That look says--No. Why then I'll not go with thee. Yet hold me fast--'tis dark--I'm lost--I'm gone. [_Dies._ _Or._ One crime makes many needful: this day's sin Blots out a life of virtue. Good old man! My bosom bleeds for thee; thy child is dead, And I the cause. 'Tis but a poor atonement; But I can make no other. [_Stabs himself._ _Riv._ What hast thou done? _Or._ Fill'd up the measure of my sins. Oh, mercy! Eternal goodness, pardon this last guilt! Rivers, thy hand!--farewell! forgive me, Heaven! Yet is it not an act which bars forgiveness, And shuts the door of grace for ever!--Oh! [_Dies._ [_The curtain fails to soft music._ EPILOGUE. WRITTEN BY R. B. SHERIDAN, ESQ. SPOKEN BY MR. LEE LEWES. Unhand me, gentlemen; by Heaven, I say, I'll make a ghost of him who bars my way. [_Behind the scenes._ Forth let me come--A Poetaster true, As lean as Envy, and as baneful too; On the dull audience let me vent my rage, Or drive these female scribblers from the stage. For scene or History, we've none but these, The law of Liberty and Wit they seize; In Tragic--Comic--Pastoral--they dare to please. Each puny Bard must surely burst with spite, To find that women with such fame can write: But, oh, your partial favour is the cause, Which feeds their follies with such full applause. Yet still our tribe shall seek to blast their fame, And ridicule each fair pretender's aim; Where the dull duties of domestic life, Wage with the Muse's toils eternal strife. What motley cares Corilla's mind perplex, While maids and metaphors conspire to vex! In studious dishabille behold her sit, A letter'd gossip, and a housewife wit; At once invoking, though for different views, Her gods, her cook, her milliner and muse, Round her strew'd room a frippery chaos lies, A chequer'd wreck of notable and wise; Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a vary'd mass, Oppress the toilet, and obscure the glass; Unfinish'd here an epigram is laid, And there, a mantua-maker's bill unpaid; Here, new-born plays foretaste the town's applause, There, dormant patterns pine for future gauze; A moral essay now is all her care, A satire next, and then a bill of fare: A scene she now projects, and now a dish, Here's act the first--and here--remove with fish. Now while this eye in a fine frenzy rolls, That, soberly casts up a bill for coals; Black pins and daggers in one leaf she sticks,