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Congreve, William, 1670-1729: The way of the world (1700)

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THE Way of the World,
A COMEDY.
As it is ACTED AT THE Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, BY His Majesty's Servants.

Front matter

The Time equal to that of the Presentation.

Main text

ACT I.

SCENE I.

A Chocolate-house.

Mirabell and Fainall [Rising from Cards] Betty waiting.

You are a fortunate Man, Mr. Fainall. /

Have we done? /

What you please. I'll play on to entertain / you. /

No, I'll give you your Revenge another time, / when you are not so indifferent; you are thinking of something / else now, and play too negligently; the Coldness of a / losing Gamester lessens the Pleasure of the Winner: I'd no / more play with a Man that slighted his ill Fortune, than / I'd make Love to a Woman who undervalu'd the Loss of her / Reputation. /

You have a Taste extreamly delicate, and are for / refining on your Pleasures. /

Prithee, why so reserv'd? Something has put you / out of Humour. /

Not at all: I happen to be grave to day; and you / are gay; that's all. /

Confess, Millamant and you quarrell'd last Night, / after I left you; my fair Cousin has some Humours, that / wou'd tempt the patience of a Stoick. What, some Coxcomb / came in, and was well receiv'd by her, while you / were by. /

Witwoud and Petulant; and what was worse, her / Aunt, your Wife's Mother, my evil Genius; or to sum up / [25] all in her own Name, my old Lady Wishfort came in.--- /

O there it is then---She has a lasting Passion for / you, and with Reason.---What, then my Wife was / there? /

Yes, and Mrs. Marwood and three or four more, / whom I never saw before; seeing me, they all put on their / grave Faces, whisper'd one another; then complain'd aloud / of the Vapours, and after fell into a profound Silence. /

They had a mind to be rid of you. /

For which Reason I resolv'd not to stir. At last / the good old Lady broke thro' her painful Taciturnity, with / an Invective against long Visits. I would not have understood / her, but Millamant joining in the Argument, I rose / and with a constrain'd Smile told her, I thought nothing / was so easie as to know when a Visit began to be troublesome; / she redned and I withdrew, without expecting her Reply. /

You were to blame to resent what she spoke only / in Compliance with her Aunt. /

She is more Mistress of her self, than to be under / the necessity of such a resignation. /

What? tho' half her Fortune depends upon her / marrying with my Lady's Approbation? /

I was then in such a Humour, that I shou'd have / been better pleas'd if she had been less discreet. /

Now I remember, I wonder not they were weary / [50] of you; last Night was one of their Cabal-nights; they / have 'em three times a Week, and meet by turns, at one / another's Apartments, where they come together like the / Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murder'd Reputations of / the Week. You and I are excluded; and it was once propos'd / that all the Male Sex shou'd be excepted; but somebody / mov'd that to avoid Scandal there might be one Man / of the Community; upon which Motion Witwoud and Petulant / were enroll'd Members. /

And who may have been the Foundress of this Sect? / My Lady Wishfort, I warrant, who publishes her Detestation / of Mankind; and full of the Vigour of Fifty five, declares / for a Friend and Ratafia; and let Posterity shift for it / self, she'll breed no more. /

The discovery of your sham Addresses to her, to / conceal your Love to her Niece, has provok'd this Separation: / Had you dissembl'd better, Things might have continu'd / in the state of Nature. /

I did as much as Man cou'd, with any reasonable / Conscience; I proceeded to the very last Act of Flattery / with her, and was guilty of a Song in her Commendation: / Nay, I got a Friend to put her into a Lampoon, and complement / her with the Imputation of an Affair with a young / Fellow, which I carry'd so far, that I told her the malicious / Town took notice that she was grown fat of a suddain; / [75] and when she lay in of a Dropsie, persuaded her she was reported / to be in Labour. The Devil's in't, if an old Woman / is to be flatter'd further, unless a Man shou'd endeavour / downright personally to debauch her; and that my / Virtue forbad me. But for the discovery of that Amour, I / am Indebted to your Friend, or your Wife's Friend / Mrs. Marwood. /

What should provoke her to be your Enemy, without / she has made you Advances, which you have slighted? / Women do not easily forgive Omissions of that Nature. /

She was always civil to me, till of late; I confess / I am not one of those Coxcombs who are apt to interpret a /

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Woman's good Manners to her Prejudice; and think that / she who does not refuse 'em every thing, can refuse 'em nothing. /

You are a gallant Man, Mirabell; and tho' you / may have Cruelty enough, not to satisfie a Lady's longing; / you have too much Generosity, not to be tender of her Honour. / Yet you speak with an Indifference which seems to / be affected; and confesses you are conscious of a Negligence. /

You pursue the Argument with a distrust that / seems to be unaffected, and confesses you are conscious of a / Concern for which the Lady is more indebted to you, than / your Wife. /

Fie, fie Friend, if you grow Censorious I must / leave you;---I'll look upon the Gamesters in the next / [100] Room. /

Who are they? /

Petulant and Witwoud.---Bring me some Chocolate. /

Betty, what says your Clock? /

Turn'd of the last Canonical Hour, Sir. /

How pertinently the Jade answers me! Ha? almost / One a Clock! [Looking on his Watch] O, y'are / come--- /

Enter a Servant.

Sir, there's such Coupling at Pancras, that they / stand behind one another, as 'twere in a Country Dance. / Ours was the last Couple to lead up; and no hopes appearing / of dispatch, Besides, the Parson growing hoarse, we were / afraid his Lungs would have fail'd before it came to our / turn; so we drove round to Duke's Place; and there they / were riveted in a trice. /

So, so, you are sure they are Married. /

Married and Bedded, Sir: I am Witness. /

Have you the Certificate? /

Here it is, Sir. /

Has the Taylor brought Waitwell's Cloaths home, / and the new Liveries? /

Yes, Sir. /

That's well. Do you go home again, d'ee hear, / [125] and adjourn the Consummation till farther Order; bid / Waitwell shake his Ears, and Dame Partlet rustle up her Feathers, / and meet me at One a Clock by Rosamond's Pond. / That I may see her before she returns to her Lady; and as / you tender your Ears be secret. /

Re-Enter Fainall.

Joy of your Success, Mirabell; you look pleas'd. /

Ay; I have been engag'd in a Matter of some sort / of Mirth, which is not yet ripe for discovery. I am glad / this is not a Cabal-night. I wonder, Fainall, that you who / are Married, and of Consequence should be discreet, will / suffer your Wife to be of such a Party. /

Faith, I am not Jealous. Besides, most who are / engag'd are Women and Relations; and for the Men, they / are of a Kind too Contemptible to give Scandal. /

I am of another Opinion. The greater the Coxcomb, / always the more the Scandal: For a Woman who is / not a Fool, can have but one Reason for associating with a / Man that is. /

Are you Jealous as often as you see Witwoud entertain'd / by Millamant? /

Of her Understanding I am, if not of her Person. /

You do her wrong; for to give her her Due, she / has Wit. /

She has Beauty enough to make any Man think so; / and Complaisance enough not to contradict him who shall / [150] tell her so. /

For a passionate Lover, methinks you are a Man / somewhat too discerning in the Failings of your Mistress. /

And for a discerning Man, somewhat too passionate / a Lover; for I like her with all her Faults; nay, like / her for her Faults. Her Follies are so natural, or so artful, / that they become her; and those Affectations which in another / Woman wou'd be odious, serve but to make her more / agreeable. I'll tell thee, Fainall, she once us'd me with that / Insolence, that in Revenge I took her to pieces; sifted her / and separated her Failings; I study'd 'em, and got 'em by / rote. The Catalogue was so large, that I was not without / hopes, one Day or other to hate her heartily: To which / end I so us'd my self to think of 'em, that at length, contrary / to my Design and Expectation, they gave me every / Hour less and less disturbance; 'till in a few Days it became / habitual to me, to remember 'em without being displeas'd. / They are now grown as familiar to me as my own Frailties; / and in all probability in a little time longer I shall like / 'em as well. /

Marry her, marry her; be half as well acquainted / with her Charms, as you are with her Defects, and my / Life on't, you are your own Man again. /

Say you so? /

I, I, I have Experience: I have a Wife, and so / [175] forth. /

Enter Messenger.

Is one Squire Witwoud here? /

Yes; what's your Business? /

I have a Letter for him, from his Brother Sir Wilfull, / which I am charg'd to deliver into his own Hands. /

He's in the next Room, Friend---That way. /

What, is the Chief of that noble Family in Town, / Sir Wilfull Witwoud? /

He is expected to Day. Do you know him? /

I have seen him, he promises to be an extraordinary / Person; I think you have the Honour to be related to / him. /

Yes; he is half Brother to this Witwoud by a former / Wife, who was Sister to my Lady Wishfort, my Wife's / Mother. If you marry Millamant you must call Cousins / too. /

I had rather be his Relation than his Acquaintance. /

He comes to Town in order to Equip himself for / Travel. /

For Travel! Why the Man that I mean is above / Forty. /

No matter for that; 'tis for the Honour of England, / that all Europe should know we have Blockheads of all / Ages. /

I wonder there is not an Act of Parliament to save / [200] the Credit of the Nation, and prohibit the Exportation of / Fools. /

By no means, 'tis better as 'tis; 'tis better to Trade / with a little Loss, than to be quite eaten up, with being / overstock'd. /

Pray, are the Follies of this Knight-Errant, and / those of the Squire his Brother, any thing related? /

Not at all; Witwoud grows by the Knight, like a / Medlar grafted on a Crab. One will melt in your Mouth, / and t'other set your Teeth on edge; one is all Pulp, and / the other all Core. /

So one will be rotten before he be ripe, and the other / will be rotten without ever being ripe at all. /

Sir Wilfull is an odd mixture of Bashfulness and / Obstinacy.---But when he's drunk, he's as loving as the / Monster in the Tempest; and much after the same manner. / To give the t'other his due; he has something of good Nature, / and does not always want Wit. /

Not always; but as often as his Memory fails him, / and his common place of Comparisons. He is a Fool with a / good Memory, and some few Scraps of other Folks Wit. / He is one whose Conversation can never be approv'd, yet it / is now and then to be endur'd. He has indeed one good / Quality, he is not Exceptious; for he so passionately affects /

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the Reputation of understanding Raillery; that he will / [225] construe an Affront into a Jest; and call downright Rudeness / and ill Language, Satyr and Fire. /

If you have a mind to finish his Picture; you have / an opportunity to do it at full length. Behold the Original. /

Enter Witwoud.

Afford me your Compassion, my Dears; pity me, / Fainall, Mirabell, pity me. /

I do from my Soul. /

Why, what's the Matter? /

No Letters for me, Betty? /

Did not the Messenger bring you one, but now / Sir? /

Ay, but no other? /

No, Sir. /

That's hard, that's very hard;---A Messenger, / a Mule, a Beast of Burden, he has brought me a Letter from / the Fool my Brother, as heavy as a Panegyrick in a Funeral / Sermon, or a Copy of Commendatory Verses from one Poet / to another. And what's worse, 'tis as sure a forerunner of / the Author, as an Epistle Dedicatory. /

A Fool, and your Brother Witwoud! /

Ay, ay, my half Brother. My half Brother he is, / no nearer upon Honour. /

Then 'tis possible he may be but half a Fool. /

Good, good Mirabell, le Drole! Good, good, hang / him, don't let's talk of him;---Fainall, how does your / [250] Lady? Gad, I say any thing in the World to get this Fellow / out of my Head. I beg Pardon that I shou'd ask a / Man of Pleasure, and the Town, a Question at once so Forreign / and Domestick. But I Talk like an old Maid at a / Marriage, I don't know what I say: But she's the best Woman / in the World. /

'Tis well you don't know what you say, or else / your Commendation wou'd go near to make me either Vain / or Jealous. /

No Man in Town lives well with a Wife but / Fainall: Your Judgment Mirabell. /

You had better step and ask his Wife; if you wou'd / be credibly inform'd. /

Mirabell. /

Ay. /

My Dear, I ask ten thousand Pardons;---Gad I / have forgot what I was going to say to you. /

I thank you heartily, heartily. /

No, but prithee excuse me,---my Memory is such / a Memory. /

Have a care of such Apologies, Witwoud;---for / I never knew a Fool but he affected to complain, either of / the Spleen or his Memory. /

What have you done with Petulant? /

He's reckoning his Mony,---my Mony it was,--- / [275] I have no Luck to Day. /

You may allow him to win of you at Play;--- / for you are sure to be too hard for him at Repartee: since / you monopolize the Wit that is between you, the Fortune / must be his of Course. /

I don't find that Petulant confesses the Superiority / of Wit to be your Talent, Witwoud. /

Come, come, you are malicious now, and wou'd / breed Debates.---Petulant's my Friend, and a very honest / Fellow, and a very pretty Fellow, and has a smattering--- / Faith and Troth a pretty deal of an odd sort of a small Wit: / Nay, I'll do him Justice. I'm his Friend, I won't wrong / him neither---And if he had but any Judgment in the / World,---he wou'd not be altogether contemptible. Come / come, don't detract from the Merits of my Friend. /

You don't take your Friend to be overnicely / bred. /

No, no, hang him, the Rogue has no Manners at all, / that I must own---No more breeding than a Bum-baily, / that I grant you,---'Tis Pity faith; the Fellow has Fire / and Life. /

What, Courage? /

Hum, faith I don't know as to that,---I can't say / as to that.---Yes, Faith, in a Controversie he'll contradict / any Body. /

[300] Tho' 'twere a Man whom he fear'd, or a Woman / whom he lov'd. /

Well, well, he does not always think before he / speaks;---We have all our Failings; you're too hard upon / him, you are Faith. Let me excuse him,---I can defend / most of his Faults, except one or two; one he has, / that's the Truth on't, if he were my Brother, I cou'd not / acquit him---That indeed I cou'd wish were otherwise. /

Ay marry, what's that, Witwoud? /

O pardon me---Expose the Infirmities of my / Friend.---No, my Dear, excuse me there. /

What I warrant he's unsincere, or 'tis some such / Trifle. /

No, no, what if he be? 'Tis no matter for that, / his Wit will excuse that: A Wit shou'd no more be sincere, / than a Woman constant; one argues a decay of Parts, as / t'other of Beauty. /

May be you think him too positive? /

No, no, his being positive is an Incentive to Argument, / and keeps up Conversation. /

Too Illiterate. /

That! that's his Happiness---His want of Learning, / gives him the more opportunities to shew his natural / Parts. /

He wants Words. /

[325] Ay; but I like him for that now; for his want of / Words gives me the pleasure very often to explain his / meaning. /

He's Impudent. /

No; that's not it. /

Vain. /

No. /

What, he speaks unseasonable Truths sometimes, / because he has not Wit enough to invent an Evasion. /

Truths! Ha, ha, ha! No, no, since you will have / it,---I mean he never speaks Truth at all,---that's all. / He will lie like a Chambermaid, or a Woman of Quality's / Porter. Now that is a Fault. /

Enter Coachman.

Is Master Petulant here, Mistress? /

Yes. /

Three Gentlewomen in the Coach would speak / with him. /

O brave Petulant, three! /

I'll tell him. /

You must bring two Dishes of Chocolate and a / Glass of Cinnamon-water. /

That should be for two fasting Strumpets, and a / Bawd troubl'd with Wind. Now you may know what / the three are. /

You are very free with your Friends Acquaintance. /

[350] Ay, ay, Friendship without Freedom is as dull as / Love without Enjoyment, or Wine without Toasting; but / to tell you a Secret, these are Trulls that he allows Coach-hire, / and something more by the Week, to call on him / once a Day at publick Places. /

How! /

You shall see he won't go to 'em because there's no / more Company here to take notice of him---Why this is / nothing to what he us'd to do;---Before he found out this / way, I have known him call for himself--- /

Call for himself? What dost thou mean? /

Mean, why he wou'd slip you out of this Chocolate-house, / just when you had been talking to him---As / soon as your Back was turn'd---Whip he was gone;--- / Then trip to his Lodging, clap on a Hood and Scarf, and / Mask, slap into a Hackney---Coach, and drive hither to the / Door again in a trice; where he wou'd send in for himself, / that I mean, call for himself, wait for himself, nay and what's / more, not finding himself, sometimes leave a Letter for himself. /

I confess this is something extraordinary---I believe / he waits for himself now, he is so long a coming; / O I ask his Pardon. /

Enter Petulant.

Sir, the Coach stays. /

Well, well; I come---Shud, a Man had as good / be a profess'd Midwife as a profest Whoremaster, at this / [375] rate; to be knock'd up and rais'd at all Hours, and in all / Places. Pox on 'em I won't come.---Dee hear, tell 'em / I won't come.---Let 'em snivel and cry their Hearts / out. /

You are very cruel, Petulant. /

All's one, let it pass---I have a Humour to be / cruel. /

I hope they are not Persons of Condition that you / use at this rate. /

Condition, Condition's a dry'd Fig, if I am not in / Humour---By this Hand, if they were your---a---a--- / your What-dee-call-'ems themselves, they must wait or rub / off, if I want Appetite. /

What-dee-call-'ems! What are they, Witwoud? /

Empresses, my Dear---By your What-dee-call-'ems / he means Sultana Queens. /

Ay, Roxolana's. /

Cry you Mercy. /

Witwoud says they are--- /

What does he say th' are? /

I; fine Ladies I say. /

Pass on, Witwoud---Hearkee, by this Light his / Relations---Two Coheiresses his Cousins, and an old / Aunt, that loves Catterwauling better than a Conventicle. /

Ha, ha, ha; I had a Mind to see how the Rogue / [400] wou'd come off---Ha, ha, ha; Gad I can't be angry with / him; if he said they were my Mother and my Sisters. /

No! /

No; the Rogue's Wit and Readiness of Invention / charm me, dear Petulant. /

They are gone Sir, in great Anger. /

Enough, let 'em trundle. Anger helps Complexion, / saves Paint. /

This Continence is all dissembled; this is in order / to have something to brag of the next time he makes Court / to Millamant, and swear he has abandon'd the whole Sex / for her Sake. /

Have you not left off your impudent Pretensions / there yet? I shall cut your Throat, sometime or other Petulant, / about that Business. /

Ay, ay, let that pass---There are other Throats / to be cut--- /

Meaning mine, Sir? /

Not I---I mean no Body---I know nothing--- / But there are Uncles and Nephews in the World---And / they may be Rivals---What then? All's one for that--- /

How! hearkee Petulant, come hither---Explain, / or I shall call your Interpreter. /

Explain, I know nothing---Why you have an / Uncle, have you not, lately come to Town, lodges by / [425] my Lady Wishfort's? /

True. /

Why that's enough---You and he are not Friends; / and if he shou'd marry and have a Child, you may be disinherited, / ha? /

Where hast thou stumbled upon all this Truth? /

All's one for that; why then say I know something. /

Come, thou art an honest Fellow Petulant, and / shalt make Love to my Mistress, thou sha't, Faith. What / hast thou heard of my Uncle? /

I, nothing I. If Throats are to be cut, let Swords / clash; snugs the Word, I shrug and am silent. /

O Raillery, Raillery. Come, I know thou art in / the Women's Secrets---What you're a Cabalist, I know / you said at Millamant's last Night, after I went. Was /

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there any mention made of my Uncle, or me? Tell me; if / thou hadst but good Nature equal to thy Wit Petulant, / Tony Witwoud, who is now thy Competitor in Fame, wou'd / shew as dim by thee as a dead Whiting's Eye, by a Pearl / of Orient; he wou'd no more be seen by thee, then Mercury / is by the Sun: Come, I'm sure thou wo't tell me. /

If I do, will you grant me common Sense then, for / the future? /

Faith I'll do what I can for thee; and I'll pray that / Heav'n may grant it thee in the mean time. /

[450] Well, hearkee. /

Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a / Rival as a Lover. /

Pshaw, pshaw, that she laughs at Petulant is plain. / And for my part---But that it is almost a Fashion to admire / her, I shou'd---Hearkee---To tell you a Secret, but / let it go no further---Between Friends, I shall never break / my Heart for her. /

How! /

She's handsome; but she's a sort of an uncertain / Woman. /

I thought you had dy'd for her. /

Umh---No--- /

She has Wit. /

'Tis what she will hardly allow any Body else;--- / Now, Demme, I shon'd hate that, if she were as handsome / as Cleopatra. Mirabell is not so sure of her as he thinks / for. /

Why do you think so? /

We staid pretty late there last Night; and heard / something of an Uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to / Town,---and is between him and the best part of his Estate; / Mirabell and he are at some distance, as my Lady Wishfort / has been told; and you know she hates Mirabell, worse than / a Quaker hates a Parrot: Or then a Fishmonger hates a / [475] hard Frost. Whether this Uncle has seen Mrs. Millamant or / not, I cannot say; but there were Items of such a Treaty / being in Embrio; and if it shou'd come to Life; poor /

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Mirabell wou'd be in some sort unfortunately fobb'd / ifaith. /

'Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it. /

Faith, my Dear, I can't tell; she's a Woman and / a kind of a Humorist. /

And this is the Sum of what you cou'd collect last / Night. /

The Quintessence. May be Witwoud knows more, / he stay'd longer---Besides they never mind him; they / say any thing before him. /

I thought you had been the greatest Favourite. /

Ay teste a teste; But not in publick, because I make / Remarks. /

Do you. /

Ay, ay, pox I'm malicious, Man. Now he's soft / you know, they are not in awe of him---The Fellow's / well bred, he's what you call a---What-dee-call-'em. A fine / Gentleman, but he's silly withal. /

I thank you, I know as much as my Curiosity / requires. Fainall, are you for the Mall? /

Ay, I'll take a turn before Dinner. /

Ay, we'll all walk in the Park, the Ladies talk'd of / [500] being there. /

I thought you were oblig'd to watch for your Brother / Sir Wilfull's arrival. /

No, no, he comes to his Aunts, my Lady Wishfort; / pox on him, I shall be troubled with him too; what shall I / do with the Fool? /

Beg him for his Estate; that I may beg you afterwards; / and so have but one Trouble with you both. /

O rare Petulant; thou art as quick as a Fire in a / frosty Morning; thou shalt to the Mall with us; and we'll / be very severe. /

Enough, I'm in a Humour to be severe. /

Are you? Pray then walk by your selves,--- / Let not us be accessary to your putting the Ladies out of / Countenance, with your senseless Ribaldry; which you / roar out aloud as often as they pass by you; and when you /

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have made a handsome Woman blush, then you think you / have been severe. /

What, what? Then let 'em either shew their Innocence / by not understanding what they hear, or else shew / their Discretion by not hearing what they would not be / thought to understand. /

But hast not thou then Sense enough to know that / thou ought'st to be most asham'd thy Self, when thou hast / put another out of Countenance. /

[525] Not I, by this Hand---I always take blushing / either for a Sign of Guilt, or ill Breeding. /

I confess you ought to think so. You are in the / right, that you may plead the error of your Judgment in / defence of your Practice. /

ACT II.

SCENE I.

St. James's Park.

Enter Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood.

Ay, ay, dear Marwood, if we will be happy, / we must find the means in our selves, and / among our selves. Men are ever in Extreams; either doating / or averse. While they are Lovers, if they have Fire / and Sense, their Jealousies are insupportable: And when / they cease to Love, (we ought to think at least) they loath; / they look upon us with Horror and Distaste; they meet us / like the Ghosts of what we were, and as such fly from us. /

True, 'tis an unhappy Circumstance of Life, / that Love shou'd ever die before us; and that the Man so / often shou'd out-live the Lover. But say what you will, / 'tis better to be left, than never to have been lov'd. To / pass our Youth in dull Indifference, to refuse the Sweets of / Life because they once must leave us; is as preposterous, as / to wish to have been born Old, because we one Day must be / Old. For my part, my Youth may wear and waste, but it / shall never rust in my Possession. /

Then it seems you dissemble an Aversion to / Mankind, only in compliance with my Mothers Humour. /

Certainly. To be free; I have no Taste of / those insipid dry Discourses, with which our Sex of force / must entertain themselves, apart from Men. We may affect / Endearments to each other, profess eternal Friendships, / and seem to doat like Lovers; but 'tis not in our Natures / [25] long to persevere. Love will resume his Empire in our / Breasts, and every Heart, or soon or late, receive and readmit / him as its lawful Tyrant. /

Bless me, how have I been deceiv'd! Why / you profess a Libertine. /

You see my Friendship by my Freedom. Come, / be as sincere, acknowledge that your Sentiments agree with / mine. /

Never. /

You hate Mankind. /

Heartily, Inveterately. /

Your Husband. /

Most transcendantly; ay, tho' I say it, meritoriously. /

Give me your Hand upon it. /

There. /

I join with you; what I have said, has been / to try you. /

Is it possible? Dost thou hate those Vipers / Men? /

I have done hating 'em; and am now come to / despise 'em; the next thing I have to do, is eternally to forget / 'em. /

There spoke the Spirit of an Amazon, a Penthesilea. /

And yet I am thinking sometimes, to carry / my Aversion further. /

[50] How? /

Faith by Marrying; if I cou'd but find one / that lov'd me very well, and would be throughly sensible of / ill usage; I think I shou'd do my self the violence of undergoing / the Ceremony. /

You would not make him a Cuckold? /

No; but I'd make him believe I did, and / that's as bad. /

Why, had not you as good do it? /

O if he shou'd ever discover it, he wou'd then / know the worst; and be out of his Pain; but I wou'd have / him ever to continue upon the Rack of Fear and Jealousy. /

Ingenious Mischief! Wou'd thou wert married / to Mirabell. /

Wou'd I were. /

You change Colour. /

Because I hate him. /

So do I; but I can hear him nam'd. But what / Reason have you to hate him in particular? /

I never lov'd him; he is, and always was insufferably / proud. /

By the Reason you give for your Aversion, / one wou'd think it dissembl'd; for you have laid a Fault to / his Charge, of which his Enemies must acquit him. /

O then it seems you are one of his favourable / [75] Enemies. Methinks you look a little pale, and now you / flush again. /

Do I? I think I am a little sick o' the suddain. /

What ails you? /

My Husband. Don't you see him? He / turn'd short upon me unawares, and has almost overcome me. /

Enter Fainall and Mirabell.

Ha, ha, ha; he comes opportunely for you. /

For you, for he has brought Mirabell with him. /

My Dear. /

My Soul. /

You don't look well to Day, Child. /

Dee think so? /

He is the only Man that do's, Madam. /

The only Man that would tell me so at least; / and the only Man from whom I could hear it without Mortification. /

O my Dear I am satisfy'd of your Tenderness; I / know you cannot resent any thing from me; especially what / is an effect of my Concern. /

Mr. Mirabell; my Mother interrupted you in / a pleasant Relation last Night: I wou'd fain hear it out. /

The Persons concern'd in that Affair, have yet a / tollerable Reputation---I am afraid Mr. Fainall will be / Censorious. /

He has a Humour more prevailing than his Curiosity, / and will willingly dispence with the hearing of one / [100] scandalous Story, to avoid giving an occasion to make another /

[Page 20]
by being seen to walk with his Wife. This way Mr. / Mirabell, and I dare promise you will oblige us both. /

Excellent Creature! Well sure if I shou'd live to be / rid of my Wife, I shou'd be a miserable Man. /

Ay! /

For having only that one Hope, the accomplishment / of it, of Consequence must put an end to all my hopes; / and what a Wretch is he who must survive his hopes! Nothing / remains when that Day comes, but to sit down and / weep like Alexander, when he wanted other Worlds to / conquer. /

Will you not follow 'em? /

Faith, I think not. /

Pray let us; I have a Reason. /

You are not Jealous? /

Of whom? /

Of Mirabell. /

If I am, is it inconsistent with my Love to / you that I am tender of your Honour? /

You wou'd intimate then, as if there were a fellow-feeling / between my Wife and Him. /

I think she do's not hate him to that degree / she wou'd be thought. /

But he, I fear, is too Insensible. /

[125] It may be you are deceiv'd. /

It may be so. I do now begin to apprehend it. /

What? /

That I have been deceiv'd Madam, and you are false. /

That I am false! What mean you? /

To let you know I see through all your little Arts--- / Come, you both love him; and both have equally dissembl'd / your Aversion. Your mutual Jealousies of one another, / have made you clash till you have both struck Fire. / I have seen the warm Confession red'ning on your Cheeks, / and sparkling from your Eyes. /

You do me wrong. /

I do not---'Twas for my ease to oversee and wilfully /

[Page 21]
neglect the gross advances made him by my Wife; / that by permitting her to be engag'd, I might continue / unsuspected in my Pleasures; and take you oftner to my / Arms in full Security. But cou'd you think because the / nodding Husband would not wake, that e'er the watchful / Lover slept! /

And wherewithal can you reproach me? /

With Infidelity, with loving of another, with / love of Mirabell. /

'Tis false. I challenge you to shew an Instance / that can confirm your groundless Accusation. I hate him. /

And wherefore do you hate him? He is Insensible, / [150] and your Resentment follows his Neglect. An Instance? / The Injuries you have done him are a proof: Your interposing / in his Love. What cause had you to make Discoveries / of his pretended Passion? To undeceive the credulous / Aunt, and be the officious Obstacle of his Match with / Millamant? /

My Obligations to my Lady urg'd me: I had / profess'd a Friendship to her; and could not see her easie / Nature so abus'd by that Dissembler. /

What, was it Conscience then! profess'd a Friendship! / O the pious Friendships of the Female Sex! /

More tender, more sincere, and more enduring, / than all the vain and empty Vows of Men, whether / professing Love to us, or mutual Faith to one another. /

Ha, ha, ha; you are my Wife's Friend too. /

Shame and Ingratitude! Do you reproach me? / You, you upbraid me! Have I been false to her, thro' strict / Fidelity to you, and sacrific'd my Friendship to keep my / Love inviolate? And have you the baseness to charge me / with the Guilt, unmindful of the Merit! To you it shou'd / be meritorious, that I have been vicious. And do you reflect / that Guilt upon me, which should lie buried in your / Bosom? /

You misinterpret my Reproof. I meant but to remind / you of the slight Account you once could make of / [175] strictest Ties, when set in Competion with your Love to me. /

'Tis false, you urg'd it with deliberate Malice--- / 'T was spoke in scorn, and I never will forgive it. /

Your Guilt, not your Resentment, begets your Rage. / If yet you lov'd, you could forgive a Jealousy: But you / are stung to find you are discover'd. /

It shall be all discover'd. You too shall be / discover'd; be sure you shall. I can but be expos'd---If I / do it my self I shall prevent your Baseness. /

Why, what will you do? /

Disclose it to your Wife; own what has past / between us. /

Frenzy! /

By all my Wrongs I'll do't---I'll publish to / the World the Injuries you have done me, both in my Fame / and Fortune: With both I trusted you, you Bankrupt in / Honour, as indigent of Wealth. /

Your Fame I have preserv'd. Your Fortune has / been bestow'd as the prodigality of your Love would have it, / in Pleasures which we both have shar'd. Yet had not you / been false, I had e'er this repaid it---'Tis true---Had you / permitted Mirabell with Millamant to have stoll'n their Marriage, / my Lady had been incens'd beyond all means of reconcilement: / Millamant had forfeited the Moiety of her Fortune; / which then wou'd have descended to my Wife;--- / [200] And wherefore did I marry, but to make lawful Prize of a / rich Widow's Wealth, and squander it on Love and you? /

Deceit and frivolous Pretence. /

Death, am I not married? what's pretence? Am I / not Imprison'd, Fetter'd? Have I not a Wife? Nay a Wife / that was a Widow, a young Widow, a handsome Widow; / and would be again a Widow, but that I have a Heart of / Proof, and something of a Constitution to bustle thro' the / ways of Wedlock and this World. Will you yet be reconcil'd / to Truth and me? /

Impossible. Truth and you are inconsistent--- / I hate you, and shall for ever. /

For loving you? /

I loath the name of Love after such usage; /

[Page 23]
and next to the Guilt with which you wou'd asperse me, I / scorn you most. Farewell. /

Nay, we must not part thus. /

Let me go. /

Come, I'm sorry. /

I care not---Let me go---Break my Hands, / do---I'd leave 'em to get loose. /

I would not hurt you for the World. Have I no / other Hold to keep you here? /

Well, I have deserv'd it all. /

You know I love you. /

[225] Poor dissembling!---O that---Well, it is / not yet--- /

What? what is it not? What is it not yet? It is / not yet too late--- /

No, it is not yet too late---I have that Comfort. /

It is to love another. /

But not to loath, detest, abhor Mankind, my / self and the whole treacherous World. /

Nay, this is Extravagance---Come I ask your / Pardon---No Tears---I was to blame, I cou'd not love / you and be easie in my Doubts---Pray forbear---I believe / you; I'm convinc'd I've done you wrong; and any / way, every way will make amends;---I'll hate my Wife / yet more, Dam her, I'll part with her, rob her of all she's / worth, and will retire somewhere, any where to another / World, I'll marry thee---Be pacify'd---'Sdeath they come, / hide your Face, your Tears---You have a Mask, wear it a / Moment. This way, this way, be persuaded. /

Enter Mirabell and Mrs. Fainall.

They are here yet. /

They are turning into the other Walk. /

While I only hated my Husband, I could / bear to see him; but since I have despis'd him, he's too / offensive. /

O you should Hate with Prudence. /

Yes, for I have Lov'd with Indiscretion. /

[250] You shou'd have just so much disgust for your / Husband, as may be sufficient to make you relish your / Lover. /

You have been the cause that I have lov'd / without Bounds, and wou'd you set Limits to that Aversion, / of which you have been the occasion? Why did you / make me marry this Man? /

Why do we daily commit disagreeable and dangerous / Actions? To save that Idol Reputation. If the familiarities / of our Loves had produc'd that Consequence, of / which you were aprehensive, Where could you have fix'd / a Father's Name with Credit, but on a Husband? I knew / Fainall to be a Man lavish of his Morals, an interested and / professing Friend, a false and a designing Lover; yet one / whose Wit and outward fair Behaviour, have gain'd a Reputation / with the Town, enough to make that Woman / stand excus'd, who has suffer'd herself to be won by his Addresses. / A better Man ought not to have been sacrific'd to / the Occasion; a worse had not answer'd to the Purpose. / When you are weary of him, you know your Remedy. /

I ought to stand in some degree of Credit with / you, Mirabell. /

In Justice to you, I have made you privy to my / whole Design, and put it in your Power to ruin or advance / my Fortune. /

[275] Whom have you instructed to represent your / pretended Uncle? /

Waitwell, my Servant. /

He is an humble Servant to Foible my Mothers / Woman; and may win her to your Interest. /

Care is taken for that---She is won and worn by / this time. They were married this morning. /

Who? /

I wou'd not tempt my Servant / to betray me by trusting him too far. If your Mother, / in hopes to ruin me, shou'd consent to marry my pretended /

[Page 25]
Uncle, he might like Mosca in the Fox, stand upon Terms; / so I made him sure before-hand. /

So, if my poor Mother is caught in a Contract, / you will discover the Imposture betimes; and release / her by producing a certificate of her Gallants former / Marriage. /

Yes, upon Condition she consent to my Marriage / with her Niece, and surrender the Moiety of her Fortune / in her Possession. /

She talk'd last Night of endeavouring at a / Match between Millamant and your Uncle. /

That was by Foible's Direction, and my Instructions / that she might seem to carry it more privately. /

Well, I have an Opinion of your Success; for / [300] I believe my Lady will do any thing to get a Husband; and / when she has this, which you have provided for her, I suppose / she will submit to any thing to get rid of him. /

Yes, I think the good Lady wou'd marry any / Thing that resembl'd a Man, tho' 'twere no more than / what a Butler cou'd pinch out of a Napkin. /

Female Frailty! We must all come to it, if / we live to be Old and feel the craving of a false Appetite / when the true is decay'd. /

An old Woman's Appetite is deprav'd like that of / a Girl---'Tis the Green Sickness of a second Childhood; / and like the faint Offer of a latter Spring, serves but to usher / in the Fall; and withers in an affected Bloom. /

Here's your Mistress. /

Enter Mrs. Millamant, Witwoud, and Mincing.

Here she comes Ifaith full sail, with her Fan / spread and her Streamers out, and a shoal of Fools for / Tenders---Ha, no, I cry her Mercy. /

I see but one poor empty Sculler; and he tows / her Woman after him. /

You seem to be unattended, Madam---You / us'd to have the Beau-mond Throng after you; and a Flock / of gay fine Perrukes hovering round you. /

Like Moths about a Candle---I had like to have / lost my Comparison for want of Breath. /

O I have deny'd my self Airs to Day. I have / [325] walk'd as fast through the Crow.--- /

As a Favourite in disgrace; and with as few Followers. /

Dear Mr. Witwoud, truce with your Similitudes: / For I am as sick of 'em--- /

As a Phisician of a good Air---I cannot help it / Madam, tho' 'tis against my self. /

Yet again! Mincing, stand between me and his / Wit. /

Do Mrs. Mincing, like a Skreen before a great Fire. / I confess I do blaze to Day, I am too bright. /

But dear Millamant, why were you so long? /

Long! Lord, have I not made violent haste? I / have ask'd every living Thing I met for you; I have enquir'd / after you, as after a new Fashion. /

Madam, truce with your Similitudes---No, you / met her Husband and did not ask him for her. /

By your leave Witwoud, that were like enquiring / after an old Fashion, to ask a Husband for his Wife. /

Hum, a hit, a hit, a palpable hit, I confess it. /

You were dress'd before I came abroad. /

Ay, that's true---O but then I had---Mincing / what had I? Why was I so long? /

O Mem, your Laship staid to peruse a Pecquet of / Letters. /

O ay, Letters---I had Letters---I am persecuted / [350] with Letters---I hate Letters---No Body knows how to / write Letters; and yet one has 'em, one does not know / why---They serve one to pin up one's Hair. /

Is that the way? Pray Madam, do you pin up your / Hair with all your Letters? I find I must keep Copies. /

Only with those in Verse, Mr. Witwoud. I never / pin up my Hair with Prose. I fancy ones Hair wou'd not / curl if it were pinn'd up with Prose. I think I try'd once / Mincing. /

O Mem, I shall never forget it. /

Ay, poor Mincing tist and tist all the morning. /

'Till I had the Cremp in my Fingers I'll vow Mem. / And all to no purpose. But when your Laship pins it up / with Poetry, it sits so pleasant the next Day as any Thing, / and is so pure and so crips. /

Indeed, so crips? /

You're such a Critick, Mr. Wtiwoud. /

Mirabell, Did not you take Exceptions last Night? / O ay, and went away---Now I think on't I'm angry--- / No, now I think on't I'm pleas'd---For I believe I gave / you some Pain. /

Do's that please you? /

Infinitely; I love to give Pain. /

You wou'd affect a Cruelty which is not in your / Nature; your true Vanity is in the power of pleasing. /

[375] O I ask your Pardon for that---One's Cruelty is / one's Power, and when one parts with one's Cruelty, one / parts with one's Power; and when one has parted with that, / I fancy one's Old and Ugly. /

Ay, ay, suffer your Cruelty to ruin the object of / your Power, to destroy your Lover---And then how vain / how lost a Thing you'll be! Nay, 'tis true: You are no / longer handsome when you've lost your Lover; your Beauty / dies upon the Instant: For Beauty is the Lovers Gift; 'tis he / bestows your Charms---Your Glass is all a Cheat. The / Ugly and the Old, whom the Looking-glass mortifies, yet / after Commendation can be flatter'd by it, and discover / Beauties in it: For that reflects our Praises, rather than / your Face. /

O the Vanity of these Men! Fainall, dee hear him? / If they did not commend us, we were not handsome! Now / you must know they could not commend one, if one was / not handsome. Beauty the Lover's Gift---Lord, what / is a Lover, that it can give? Why one makes Lovers as fast / as one pleases, and they live as long as one pleases, and they / die as soon as one pleases: And then if one pleases, one / makes more. /

Very pretty. Why you make no more of making /

[Page 28]
of Lovers, Madam, than of making so many Card-matches. /

One no more owes one's Beauty to a Lover, than / [400] ones Wit to an Eccho: They can but reflect what we look / and say; vain empty Things if we are silent or unseen, and / want a being. /

Yet to those two vain empty Things, you owe two / the greatest Pleasures of your Life. /

How so? /

To your Lover you owe the pleasure of hearing / your selves prais'd; and to an Eccho the pleasure of hearing / your selves talk. /

But I know a Lady that loves talking so incessantly, / she won't give an Eccho fair play; she has that everlasting / Rotation of Tongue, that an Eccho must wait till she dies, / before it can catch her last Words. /

O Fiction; Fainall, let us leave these Men. /

Draw off Witwoud. /

Immediately; I have a Word or two for / Mr. Witwoud. /

I wou'd beg a little private. Audience too--- /
                                        [Exit Witwoud and Mrs. Fainall.
You had the Tyranny to deny me last Night; tho' you / knew I came to impart a Secret to you, that concern'd my / Love. /

You saw I was engag'd. /

Unkind. You had the leisure to entertain a Herd / of Fools; Things who visit you from their excessive Idleness; / bestowing on your easiness that time, which is the / [425] incumbrance of their Lives. How can you find delight / in such Society? It is impossible they should admire you, / they are not capable: Or if they were, it shou'd be to you / as a Mortification; for sure to please a Fool is some degree / of Folly. /

I please my self---Besides sometimes to converse / with Fools, is for my Health. /

Your Health! Is there a worse Disease then the / Conversation of Fools? /

Yes, the Vapours; Fools are Physick for it, next / to Assa-fatida. /

You are not in a Course of Fools? /

Mirabell, If you persist in this offensive Freedom--- / You'll displease me---I think I must resolve after all, not / to have you---We shan't agree. /

Not in our Physick it may be. /

And yet our Distemper in all likelihood will be the / same; for we shall be sick of one another. I shan't endure / to be reprimanded, nor instructed; 'tis so dull to act always / by Advice, and so tedious to be told of ones Faults---I can't / bear it. Well, I won't have you Mirabell---I'm resolv'd--- / I think---You may go---Ha, ha, ha. What wou'd you / give, that you cou'd help loving me? /

I would give something that you did not know, I / cou'd not help it. /

[450] Come, don't look grave then. Well, what do you / say to me? /

I say that a Man may as soon make a Friend by / his Wit, or a Fortune by his Honesty, as win a Woman / with plain Dealing and Sincerity. /

Sententious Mirabell! Prithee don't look with that / violent and inflexible wise Face, like Solomon at the dividing / of the Child in an old Tapestry-hanging. /

You are merry, Madam, but I wou'd perswade you / for one Moment to be serious. /

What, with that Face? No, if you keep your / Countenance, 'tis impossible I shou'd hold mine. Well, after / all, there is something very moving in a love-sick Face. / Ha, ha, ha---Well I won't laugh, don't be peevish--- / Heigho! Now I'll be melancholly, as melancholly as a / Watch-light. Well Mirabell, If ever you will win me woe / me now---Nay, if you are so tedious, fare you well;--- / I see they are walking away. /

Can you not find in the variety of your Disposition / one Moment--- /

To hear you tell me that Foible's married, and your / Plot like to speed---No. /

But how you came to know it--- /

Unless by the help of the Devil you can't imagine; /

[Page 30]
unless she shou'd tell me her self. Which of the two it / [475] may have been, I will leave you to consider; and when you / have done thinking of that; think of me. /

I have something more---Gone---Think of you! / To think of a Whirlwind, tho' 'twere in a Whirlwind, were / a Case of more steady Contemplation; a very tranquility of / Mind and Mansion. A Fellow that lives in a Windmill, has / not a more whimsical Dwelling than the Heart of a Man that / is lodg'd in a Woman. There is no Point of the Compass to / which they cannot turn, and by which they are not turn'd; / and by one as well as another; for Motion not Method is their / Occupation. To know this, and yet continue to be in Love, / is to be made wise from the Dictates of Reason, and yet persevere / to play the Fool by the force of Instinct---O here / come my pair of Turtles---What, billing so sweetly! Is / not Valentine's Day over with you yet? /

Enter Waitwell and Foible.

Your Pardon, Sir. With Submission, we have indeed / been solacing in lawful Delights; but still with an Eye / to Business, Sir. I have instructed her as well as I cou'd. If / she can take your Directions as readily as my Instructions, / Sir, your Affairs are in a prosperous way. /

Give you Joy, Mrs. Foible. /

O las Sir, I'm so asham'd---I'm afraid my Lady / has been in a thousand Inquietudes for me. But I protest, / [500] Sir, I made as much haste as I could. /

That she did indeed, Sir. It was my Fault that / she did not make more. /

That I believe. /

But I told my Lady as you instructed me, Sir. That / I had a prospect of seeing Sir Rowland your Uncle; and that / I wou'd put her Ladyship's Picture in my Pocket to shew / him; which I'll be sure to say has made him so enamour'd of / her Beauty, that he burns with Impatience to lie at her / Ladyship's Feet and worship the Original. /

Excellent Foible! Matrimony has made you eloquent / in Love. /

I think she has profited, Sir. I think so. /

You have seen Madam Millamant, Sir? /

Yes. /

I told her Sir, because I did not know that you / might find an Opportunity; she had so much Company / last Night. /

Your Diligence will merit more---In the mean / time--- /

O dear Sir, your humble Servant. /

Spouse. /

Stand off Sir, not a Penny---Go on and prosper, / Foible---The Lease shall be made good and the Farm / stock'd, if we succeed. /

[525] I don't question your Generosity, Sir: And you / need not doubt of Success. If you have no more Commands / Sir, I'll be gone; I'm sure my Lady is at her Toilet, and / can't dress till I come---O Dear, I'm sure that [Looking out. / was Mrs. Marwood that went by in a Mask; if she has seen / me with you I'm sure she'll tell my Lady. I'll make haste / home and prevent her. Your Servant Sir. B'w'y Waitwell. /

Sir Rowland if you please. The Jade's so pert upon / her Preferment she forgets her self. /

Come Sir, will you endeavour to forget your / self---And transform into Sir Rowland. /

Why Sir; it will be impossible I shou'd remember / my self---Married, Knighted and attended all in one Day! / 'Tis enough to make any Man forget himself. The Difficulty / will be how to recover my Acquaintance and Familiarity / with my former self; and fall from my Transformation / to a Reformation into Waitwell. Nay, I shan't be quite / the same Waitwell neither---For now I remember me, I / am married, and can't be my own Man again. /

ACT III.

SCENE I.

A Room in Lady Wishfort's House.

Lady Wishfort at her Toilet, Peg waiting.

Merciful, no News of Foible yet? /

No, Madam. /

I have no more patience---If I have not fretted / my self till I am pale again, there's no Veracity in me. / Fetch me the Red---The Red, do you hear, Sweet-heart? / An errant Ash colour, as I'm a Person. Look you how this / Wench stirs! Why dost thou not fetch me a little Red? / Did'st thou not hear me, Mopus? /

The red Ratifia does your Ladyship mean, or the / Cherry Brandy? /

Ratifia, Fool. No Fool. Not the Ratifia Fool--- / Grant me patience! I mean the Spanish Paper Idiot, Complexion / Darling. Paint, Paint, Paint, dost thou understand / that, Changeling, dangling thy Hands like Bobbins before / thee. Why dost thou not stir Puppet? thou wooden Thing / upon Wires. /

Lord, Madam, your Ladyship is so impatient--- / I cannot come at the Paint, Madam; Mrs. Foible has lock'd / it up, and carry'd the Key with her. /

A Pox take you both---Fetch me the Chery-Brandy / then---[Exit Peg.] I'm as pale and as faint, I / look like Mrs. Qualmsick the Curate's Wife, that's always / breeding---Wench, come, come, Wench, what art thou / doing, Sipping? Tasting? Save thee, dost thou not know / [25] the Bottle? /

Enter Peg with a Bottle and China-cup.

Madam, I was looking for a Cup. /

A Cup, save thee, and what a Cup hast thou / brought! Dost thou take me for a Fairy, to drink out of an / Acorn? Why didst thou not bring thy Thimble? Hast thou / ne'er a Brass-Thimble clinking in thy Pocket with a bit of / Nutmeg? I warrant thee. Come, fill, fill.---So---again. / See who that is---[One knocks] Set down the Bottle first. / Here, here, under the Table---What wou'dst thou go with / the Bottle in thy Hand like a Tapster. As I'm a Person, / this Wench has liv'd in an Inn upon the Road, before she / came to me, like Maritorne's the Asturian in Don Quixote. / No Foible yet? /

No Madam, Mrs. Marwood. /

O Marwood, let her come in. Come in good Marwood. /

Enter Mrs. Marwood.

I'm surpriz'd to find your Ladyship in dishabilie / at this time of day. /

Foible's a lost Thing; has been abroad since Morning, / and never heard of since. /

I saw her but now, as I came mask'd through / the Park, in Conference with Mirabell. /

With Mirabell! You call my Blood into my Face, / with mentioning that Traytor. She durst not have the Confidence. / I sent her to Negotiate an Affair, in which if I'm / detected I'm undone. If that wheadling Villain has wrought / [50] upon Foible to detect me, I'm ruin'd. Oh my dear Friend, / I'm a Wretch of Wretches if I'm detected. /

O Madam, you cannot suspect Mrs. Foible's / Integrity. /

O, he carries Poyson in his Tongue that wou'd / corrupt Integrity it self. If she has given him an Opportunity, / she has as good as put her Integrity into his Hands. / Ah dear Marwood, what's Integrity to an Opportunity?--- / Hark! I hear her---Go you Thing and send her in. [Ex. Peg. / Dear Friend retire into my Closet, that I may examine her / with more freedom---You'll pardon me dear Friend, I / can make bold with you---There are Books over the Chimney /

[Page 34]
---Quarles and Pryn, and the Short View of the Stage, with / Bunyan's Works to entertain you. /
                                        [Exit Marwood.

Enter Foible.

Madam, I have seen the Party. /

But what hast thou done? /

Nay, 'tis your Ladyship has done, and are to do; I / have only promis'd. But a Man so enamour'd---So transported! / Well, here it is, all that is left; all that is not kiss'd / away---Well, if worshipping of Pictures be a Sin--- / Poor Sir Rowland, I say. /

The Miniature has been counted like---But hast / thou not betray'd me, Foible? Hast thou not detected me to / that faithless Mirabell?---What had'st thou to do with / [75] him in the Park? Answer me, has he got nothing out of thee? /

So, the Devil has been before hand with me, what / shall I say?---Alas, Madam, cou'd I help it, if I met that / confident Thing? Was I in Fault? If you had heard how / he us'd me, and all upon your Ladyship's Account, I'm sure / you wou'd not suspect my Fidelity. Nay, if that had been / the worst I cou'd have born: But he had a Fling at your / Ladyship too; and then I could not hold; But Ifaith I gave / him his own. /

Me? What did the filthy Fellow say? /

O Madam; 'tis a shame to say what he said--- / With his Taunts and his Fleers, tossing up his Nose. Humh / (says he) what you are a hatching some Plot (says he) you / are so early abroad, or Catering (says he) ferreting for some / disbanded Officer I warrant---Half Pay is but thin Subsistance / (says he)---Well, what Pension does your Lady / propose? Let me see (says he) what she must come down / pretty deep now, she's super-annuated (says he) and--- /

Ods my Life, I'll have him, I'll have him murder'd. / I'll have him poyson'd. Where does he eat? I'll marry a / Drawer to have him poyson'd in his Wine. I'll send for / Robin from Lockets---Immediately. /

Poyson him? Poysoning's too good for him. Starve / him Madam, starve him, marry Sir Rowland and get him / disinherited. O you would bless your self, to hear what / [100] he said. /

A Villain, superanuated! /

Humh (says he) I hear you are laying Designs against / me too (says he), and Mrs. Millamant is to marry my / Uncle; (he does not suspect a Word of your Ladyship;) but / (says he) I'll fit you for that, I warrant you (says he) I'll / hamper you for that (says he) you and your old Frippery / too (says he) I'll handle you--- /

Audacious Villain! handle me, wou'd he durst--- / Frippery? old Frippery! Was there ever such a foul-mouth'd / Fellow? I'll be married to Morrow, I'll be contracted / to Night. /

The sooner the better, Madam. /

Will Sir Rowland be here, say'st thou? when Foible? /

Incontinently, Madam. No new Sheriff's Wife / expects the return of her Husband after Knighthood, with / that Impatience in which Sir Rowland burns for the dear hour / of kissing your Ladyship's Hands after Dinner. /

Frippery? Superannuated Frippery! I'll Frippery / the Villain; I'll reduce him to Frippery and Rags: A Tatterdemallion / ---I hope to see him hung with Tatters, / like a long Lane Pent-house, or a Gibbet-thief. A slander / mouth'd Railer: I warrant the Spendthrift Prodigal's in / Debt as much as the Million Lottery, or the whole Court / upon a Birth day. I'll spoil his Credit with his Taylor. / [125] Yes, he shall have my Niece with her Fortune, he shall. /

He! I hope to see him lodge in Ludgate first, and / Angle into Black Friers for Brass Farthings, with an old / Mitten. /

Ay dear Foible; thank thee for that dear Foible. / He has put me out of all patience. I shall never recompose / my Features, to receive Sir Rowland with any Oeconomy of / Face. This Wretch has fretted me that I am absolutely decay'd. / Look Foible. /

Your Ladyship has frown'd a little too rashly, indeed / Madam. There are some Cracks discernable in the / white Vernish. /

Let me see the Glass---Cracks, say'st thou? Why / I am arrantly flea'd---I look like an old peel'd Wall. Thou / must repair me Foible, before Sir Rowland comes; or I shall / never keep up to my Picture. /

I warrant you, Madam; a little Art once made / your Picture like you; and now a little of the same Art, / must make you like your Picture. Your Picture must sit / for you, Madam. /

But art thou sure Sir Rowland will not fail to come? / Or will a not fail when he does come? Will he be Importunate / Foible, and push? For if he shou'd not be Importunate / ---I shall never break Decorums---I shall die with / Confusion, if I am forc'd to advance---Oh no, I can never / [150] advance---I shall swoon if he shou'd expect advances. / No, I hope Sir Rowland is better bred, than to put a Lady / to the necessity of breaking her Forms. I won't be too coy / neither.---I won't give him despair---But a little Disdain / is not amiss; a little Scorn is alluring. /

A little Scorn becomes your Ladyship. /

Yes, but Tenderness becomes me best---A sort of / a dyingness---You see that Picture has a sort of a---Ha / Foible? A swimminess in the Eyes---Yes, I'll look so--- / My Niece affects it; but she wants Features. Is Sir Rowland / handsome? Let my Toilet be remov'd---I'll dress / above. I'll receive Sir Rowland here. Is he handsome? / Don't answer me. I won't know: I'll be surpriz'd. I'll / be taken by Surprize. /

By Storm, Madam. Sir Rowland's a brisk Man. /

Is he! O then he'll Importune, if he's a brisk Man. / I shall save Decorums if Sir Rowland importunes. I have a / mortal Terror at the apprehension of offending against Decorums. / Nothing but Importunity can surmount Decorums. / O I'm glad he's a brisk Man. Let my Things be / remov'd, good Foible. /

Enter Mrs. Fainall.

O Foible, I have been in a Fright, least I / shou'd come too late. That Devil Marwood saw you in the / Park with Mirabell, and I'm afraid will discover it to my Lady. /

Discover what, Madam? /

[175] Nay, nay, put not on that strange Face. I / am privy to the whole Design, and know that Waitwell, to / whom thou wert this morning Married, is to personate / Mirabell's Uncle, and as such winning my Lady, to involve / her in those Difficulties, from which Mirabell only must release / her, by his making his Conditions to have my Cousin / and her Fortune left to her own disposal. /

O dear Madam, I beg your Pardon. It was not my / Confidence in your Ladyship that was deficient; but I / thought the former good Correspondence between your Ladyship / and Mr. Mirabell, might have hinder'd his communicating / this Secret. /

Dear Foible forget that. /

O dear Madam, Mr. Mirabell is such a sweet winning / Gentleman---But your Ladyship is the Pattern of / Generosity.---Sweet Lady, to be so good! Mr. Mirabell / cannot chuse but be grateful. I find your Ladyship has his / Heart still. Now, Madam, I can safely tell your Ladyship / our success, Mrs. Marwood had told my Lady; but I warrant / I manag'd my self. I turn'd it all for the better. I / told my Lady that Mr. Mirabell rail'd at her. I laid horrid / Things to his charge, I'll vow; and my Lady is so incens'd, / that she'll be contracted to Sir Rowland to Night, she says;--- / I warrant I work'd her up, that he may have her for asking / for, as they say of a Welch Maiden-head. /

[200] O rare Foible! /

Madam, I beg your Ladyship to acquaint Mr. Mirabell / of his success. I wou'd be seen as little as possible to / speak to him,---besides, I believe Madam Marwood watches / me.---She has a Month's mind; but I know Mr. Mirabell / can't abide her.---[Enter Footman.] John---remove / my Lady's Toilet. Madam your Servant. My Lady is so / impatient, I fear she'll come for me, if I stay. /

I'll go with you up the back Stairs, left I / shou'd meet her. /

Enter Mrs. Marwood.

Indeed Mrs. Engine, is it thus with you? Are / you become a go-between of this Importance? Yes, I shall / watch you. Why this Wench is the Pass-par-tout, a very / Master-Key to every Bodies strong Box. My Friend Fainall, / have you carried it so swimmingly? I thought there was / something in it; but it seems it's over with you. Your / loathing is not from a want of Appetite then, but from a / Surfeit. Else you could never be so cool to fall from a Principal / to be an Assistant; to procure for him! A Pattern of / Generosity, that I confess. Well, Mr. Fainall, you have / met with your Match.---O Man, Man! Woman, Woman! / The Devil's an Ass: If I were a Painter, I wou'd / draw him like an Idiot, a Driveler, with a Bib and Bells. / Man shou'd have his Head and Horns, and Woman the / rest of him. Poor simple Fiend! Madam Marwood has a / [225] Months Mind, but he can't abide her---'Twere better for / him you had not been his Confessor in that Affair; without / you cou'd have kept his Counsel closer. I shall not prove / another Pattern of Generosity; and stalk for him, till he / takes his Stand to aim at a Fortune; he has not oblig'd me / to that, with those Excesses of himself; and now I'll have / none of him. Here comes the good Lady, panting ripe; / with a Heart full of Hope, and a Head full of Care, like / any Chymist upon the Day of Projection. /

Enter Lady Wishfort.

O dear Marwood what shall I say, for this rude forgetfulness / ---But my dear Friend is all Goodness. /

No Apologies, dear Madam. I have been / very well entertained. /

As I'm a Person I am in a very Chaos to think I / shou'd so forget my self---But I have such an Olio of Affairs / really I know not what to do---[Calls]---Foible--- / I expect my Nephew Sir Wilfull every moment too---Why / Foible---He means to Travel for Improvement. /

Methinks Sir Wilfull should rather think of / Marrying than Travelling at his Years. I hear he is turn'd / of Forty. /

O he's in less Danger of being spoil'd by his Travels / ---I am against my Nephews marrying too young. It / will be time enough when he comes back, and has acquir'd / Discretion to choose for himself. /

[250] Methinks Mrs. Millamant and he wou'd make / a very fit Match. He may Travel afterwards. 'Tis a Thing / very usual with young Gentlemen. /

I promise you I have thought on't---And since / 'tis your Judgment, I'll think on't again. I assure you I will; / I value your Judgment extreamly. On my Word I'll propose / it. /

Enter Foible.

Mr. Witwoud and Mr. Petulant, are come to Dine / with your Ladyship. /

O Dear, I can't appear till I'm dressld. Dear Marwood / shall I be free with you again, and beg you to entertain / 'em. I'll make all imaginable haste. Dear Friend excuse / me. /

Enter Mrs. Millamant and Mincing.

Sure never any thing was so Unbred as that odious / Man---Marwood, your Servant. /

You have a Colour, what's the matter? /

That horrid Fellow Petulant, has provok'd me into / into a Flame---I have broke my Fan---Mincing, lend me / yours;---Is not all the Powder out of my Hair? /

No. What has he done? /

Nay, he has done nothing; he has only talk'd--- / Nay, he has said nothing neither; but he has contradicted / every Thing that has been said. For my part, I thought / [275] Witwood and he wou'd have quarrell'd. /

I vow Mem, I thought once they wou'd have fit. /

Well, 'tis a lamentable thing I'll swear, that one / has not the liberty of choosing one's Acquaintance, as one / does one's Cloaths. /

If we had the liberty, we shou'd be as weary / of one Set of Acquaintance, tho' never so good, as we are of / one Suit, tho' never so fine. A Fool and a Doily Stuff wou'd / now and then find Days of Grace, and be worn for variety. /

I could consent to wear 'em, if they wou'd wear alike; / but Fools never wear out---they are such Drap-auberry / Things! without one cou'd give 'em to one's Chambermaid / after a day or two. /

'Twere better so indeed. Or what think you / of the Play-house? A fine gay glossy Fool, shou'd be given / there, like a new masking Habit, after the Masquerade is over, / and we have done with the Disguise. For a Fool's Visit is / always a Disguise; and never admitted by a Woman of Wit, / but to blind her Affair with a Lover of Sense. If you wou'd / but appear bare fac'd now, and own Mirabell; you might as / easily put off Petulant and Witwoud, as your Hood and Scarf. / And indeed 'tis time, for the Town has found it: The Secret / is grown too big for the Pretence: 'Tis like Mrs. Primly's / great Belly; she may lace it down before, but it burnishes / on her Hips. Indeed, Millamant, you can no more / [300] conceal it, then my Lady Strammel can her Face, that goodly / Face, which in defiance of her Rhenish-wine Tea, will / not be comprehended in a Mask. /

I'll take my Death, Marwood, you are more Censorious, / than a decay'd Beauty, or a discarded Tost; Mincing, / tell the Men they may come up. My Aunt is not dressing; / their Folly is less provoking than your Mallice, the / Town has found it. [Exit. Mincing.] What has it / found? That Mirabell loves me is no more a Secret, than it / is a Secret that you discover'd it to my Aunt, or than the / Reason why you discover'd it is a Secret. /

You are nettl'd. /

You'r mistaken. Ridiculous! /

Indeed my Dear, you'll tear another Fan, if / you don't mitigate those violent Airs. /

O silly! Ha, ha, ha. I cou'd laugh immoderately. / Poor Mirabell! his Constancy to me has quite destroy'd his / Complaisance for all the World beside. I swear, I never enjoin'd / it him, to be so coy---If I had the Vanity to think / he wou'd obey me; I wou'd command him to shew more / Gallantry---'Tis hardly well bred to be so particular on / one Hand, and so insensible on the other. But I despair to / prevail, and so let him follow his own way. Ha, ha, ha. / Pardon me, dear Creature, I must laugh, Ha, ha, ha; tho' / I grant you 'tis a little barbarous, Ha, ha, ha. /

[325] What pity 'tis, so much fine Raillery, and / deliver'd with so significant Gesture, shou'd be so unhappily / directed to miscarry. /

Hæ? Dear Creature I ask your Pardon---I swear / I did not mind you. /

Mr. Mirabell and you both, may think it a / Thing impossible, when I shall tell him, by telling you--- /

O Dear, what? for it is the same thing, if I hear / it---Ha, ha, ha. /

That I detest him, hate him, Madam. /

O Madam, why so do I---And yet the Creature / loves me, Ha, ha, ha. How can one forbear laughing to / think of it---I am a Sybil if I am not amaz'd to think what / he can see in me. I'll take my Death, I think you are handsomer / ---And within a Year or two as young.--- / If you cou'd but stay for me, I shou'd overtake you---But / that cannot be---Well, that Thought makes me Melancholly / ---Now I'll be sad. /

Your merry Note may be chang'd sooner / than you think. /

Dee say so? Then I'm resolv'd I'll have a Song to / keep up my Spirits. /

Enter Mincing.

The Gentlemen stay but to Comb, Madam; and / will wait on you. /

Desire Mrs.---that is in the next Room to / [350] sing the Song, I wou'd have learnt Yesterday. You shall / hear it Madam---Not that there's any great matter in / it---But 'tis agreeable to my Humour. /

Enter Petulant and Witwoud.

Is your Animosity compos'd, Gentlemen? /

Raillery, Raillery, Madam, we have have no Animosity / ---We hit off a little Wit now and then, but no /

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Animosity---The falling out of Wits is like the falling / out of Lovers---We agree in the main, like Treble and / Base. Ha, Petulant! /

Ay in the main---But when I have a Humour to / contradict. /

Ay, when he has a Humour to contradict, then I / contradict too. What, I know my Cue. Then we contradict / [375] one another like two Battle-dores: For Contradictions / beget one another like Jews. /

If he says Black's Black---If I have a Humour to / say 'tis Blue---Let that pass---All's one for that. If / I have a Humour to prove it, it must be granted. /

Not positively must---But it may---It may. /

Yes, it positively must, upon Proof positive. /

Ay, upon Proof positive it must; but upon Proof / presumptive it only may. That's a Logical Distinction / now, Madam. /

I perceive your Debates are of Importance / and very learnedly handl'd. /

Importance is one Thing, and Learning's another; / but a Debate's a Debate, that I assert. /

Petulant's an Enemy to Learning; he relies altogether / on his Parts. /

No, I'm no Enemy to Learning; it hurts not me. /

That's a Sign indeed its no Enemy to you. /

No, no, it's no Enemy to any Body, but them that / have it. /

Well, an illiterate Man's my Aversion. I wonder / at the Impudence of any Illiterate Man, to offer to make / Love. /

That I confess I wonder at too. /

Ah! to marry an Ignorant! that can hardly Read / [400] or Write. /

Why shou'd a Man be ever the further from being / married tho' he can't Read, any more than he is from being / Hang'd. The Ordinary's paid for setting the Psalm, and / the Parish-Priest for reading the Ceremony. And for the /

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rest which is to follow in both Cases, a Man may do it without / Book---So all's one for that. /

Dee hear the Creature? Lord, here's Company, / I'll be gone. /

In the Name of Bartlemew and his Fair, what have / we here? /

'Tis your Brother, I fancy. Don't you know / him? /

Not I---Yes, I think it is he---I've almost forgot / him; I have not seen him since the Revolution. /

Enter Sir Wilfull Witwoud in a Country Riding Habit, and Servant to Lady Wishfort.

Sir, my Lady's dressing. Here's Company; if / you please to walk in, in the mean time. /

Dressing! What it's but Morning here I warrant / with you in London; we shou'd count it towards Afternoon / in our Parts, down in Shropshire---Why then belike my / Aunt han't din'd yet---Ha, Friend? /

Your Aunt, Sir? /

My Aunt Sir, yes my Aunt Sir, and your Lady / Sir; your Lady is my Aunt, Sir---Why, what do'st thou / not know me, Friend? Why then send Somebody here that / [425] does. How long hast thou liv'd with thy Lady, Fellow, ha! /

A Week, Sir; longer than any Body in the House, / except my Lady's Woman. /

Why then belike thou dost not know thy Lady, / if thou see'st her, ha Friend? /

Why truly Sir, I cannot safely swear to her Face / in a Morning, before she is dress'd. 'Tis like I may give a / shrew'd guess at her by this time. /

Well prithee try what thou can'st do; if thou / can'st not guess, enquire her out, do'st hear Fellow? And tell / her, her Nephew Sir Wilfull Witwoud is in the House. /

I shall, Sir. /

Hold ye, hear me Friend; a Word with you in / your Ear, prithee who are these Gallants? /

Really Sir, I can't tell; here come so many here, / 'tis hard to know 'em all. /

Oons this Fellow knows less than a Starling; I / don't think a' knows his own Name. /

Mr. Witwoud, your Brother is not behind Hand / in forgetfulness---I fancy he has forgot you too. /

I hope so---The Devil take him that remembers / first, I say. /

Save you Gentlemen and Lady. /

For shame Mr. Witwoud; why won't you speak / to him?---And you, Sir. /

[450] Petulant speak. /

And you, Sir. /

No Offence, I hope. /

No sure, Sir. /

This is a vile Dog, I see that already. No Offence! / Ha, ha, ha, to him; to him Petulant, smoke him. /

It seems as if you had come a Journey, Sir; hem, / hem. /

Very likely, Sir, that it may seem so. /

No Offence, I hope, Sir, /

Smoke the Boots, the Boots; Petulant, the Boots; / Ha, ha, ha. /

May be not, Sir; thereafter as 'tis meant, Sir. /

Sir, I presume upon the Information of your Boots. /

Why, 'tis like you may, Sir: If you are not / satisfy'd with the Information of my Boots, Sir, if you will / step to the Stable, you may enquire further of my Horse, / Sir. /

Your Horse, Sir! Your Horse is an Ass, Sir! /

Do you speak by way of Offence, Sir? /

The Gentleman's merry, that's all, Sir--- / S'life, we shall have a Quarrel betwixt an Horse and an Ass, / before they find one another out. You must not take any / Thing amiss from your Friends, Sir. You are among your / Friends here, tho' it may be you don't know it---If I am / [475] not mistaken, you are Sir Willfull Witwoud. /

Right Lady; I am Sir Willfull Witwoud, so I / write my self; no offence to any Body, I hope; and Nephew / to the Lady Wishfort, of this Mansion. /

Don't you know this Gentleman, Sir? /

Hum! What sure 'tis not---Yea by'r Lady, / but 'tis---'Sheart I know not whether 'tis or no---Yea / but 'tis, by the Rekin. Brother Anthony! What Tony Ifaith! / What do'st thou not know me? By'r Lady nor I thee, thou / art so Becravated, and Beperriwig'd---'Sheart why do'st / not speak? Art thou o'er-joy'd? /

Odso Brother, is it you? Your Servant Brother. /

Your Servant! Why yours, Sir. Your Servant / again---'Sheart, and your Friend and Servant to that--- / And a---(puff) and a flap Dragon for your Service, Sir: / And a Hare's Foot, and a Hare's Scut for your Service, Sir; / an you be so cold and so courtly! /

No offence, I hope, Brother. /

'Sheart, Sir, but there is, and much offence.--- / A pox, is this your Inns o' Court breeding, not to know / your Friends and your Relations, your Elders, and your / Betters? /

Why Brother Willfull of Salop, you may be as short / as a Shrewsbury Cake, if you please. But I tell you, 'tis not / modish to know Relations in Town. You think you're in / [500] the Country, where great lubberly Brothers slabber and kiss / one another when they meet, like a Call of Serjeants--- / 'Tis not the fashion here; 'tis not indeed, dear Brother. /

The Fashion's a Fool; and you're a Fop, dear / Brother. 'Sheart, I've suspected this---By'r Lady I conjectur'd / you were a Fop, since you began to change the Stile of / your Letters, and write in a scrap of Paper gilt round the / Edges, no broader than a Subpæna. I might expect this, / when you left off Honour'd Brother; and hoping you are in / good Health, and so forth---To begin with a Rat me, / Knight, I'm so sick of a last Nights debauch---O'ds heart, / and then tell a familiar Tale of a Cock and a Bull, and a / Whore and a Bottle, and so conclude---You cou'd write / News before you were out of your Time, when you liv'd /

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with honest Pumple Nose the Attorney of Furnival's Inn--- / You cou'd intreat to be remember'd then to your Friends / round the Rekin. We cou'd have Gazetts then, and Dawks's / Letter, and the weekly Bill, 'till of late Days. /

S'life, Witwoud, were you ever an Attorney's Clerk? / Of the Family of the Furnivals. Ha, ha, ha! /

Ay, ay, but that was for a while. Not long, not / long; pshaw, I was not in my own Power then. An Orphan, / and this Fellow was my Guardian; ay, ay, I was / glad to consent to that Man to come to London. He had / the disposal of me then. If I had not agreed to that, I might / [525] have been bound Prentice to a Felt maker in Shrewsbury; this / Fellow wou'd have bound me to a Maker of Felts. /

'Sheart, and better than to be bound to a Maker / of Fops; where, I suppose, you have serv'd your Time; / and now you may set up for your self. /

You intend to Travel, Sir, as I'm inform'd. /

Belike I may Madam. I may chance to sail upon / the salt Seas, if my Mind hold. /

And the Wind serve. /

Serve or not serve, I shant ask License of you, / Sir; nor the Weather-Cock your Companion. I direct my / Discourse to the Lady, Sir: 'Tis like my Aunt may have / told you, Madam---Yes, I have settl'd my Concerns, I / may say now, and am minded to see Foreign Parts. If an / how that the Peace holds, whereby that is, Taxes abate. /

I thought you had design'd for France at all Adventures. /

I can't tell that; 'tis like I may, and 'tis like I / may not. I am somewhat dainty in making a Resolution, / ---because when I make it I keep it. I don't stand shill I, / shall I, then; if I say't, I'll do't: But I have Thoughts to / tarry a small matter in Town, to learn somewhat of your / Lingo first, before I cross the Seas. I'd gladly have a spice of / your French as they say, whereby to hold discourse in Foreign / Countries. /

Here is an Academy in Town for that use. /

[550] There is? 'Tis like there may. /

No doubt you will return very much improv'd. /

Yes, refin'd, like a Dutch Skipper from a Whale-fishing. /

Enter Lady Wishfort and Fainall.

Nephew, you are welcome. /

Aunt, your Servant. /

Sir Willfull, your most faithful Servant. /

Cousin Fainall, give me your Hand. /

Cousin Witwoud, your Servant; Mr. Petulant, your / Servant.---Nephew, you are welcome again. Will you / drink any Thing after your Journey, Nephew, before you / eat? Dinner's almost ready. /

I'm very well I thank you Aunt---However, I / thank you for your courteous Offer. 'Sheart, I was afraid / you wou'd have been in the fashion too, and have remember'd / to have forgot your Relations. Here's your Cousin / Tony, belike, I may'nt call him Brother for fear of offence. /

O he's a Rallier, Nephew---My Cousin's a Wit. / And your great Wits always rally their best Friends to chuse. / When you have been abroad, Nephew, you'll understand / Raillery better. /

Why then let him hold his Tongue in the mean / time; and rail when that day comes. /

Enter Mincing.

Mem, I come to acquaint your Laship that Dinner / is impatient. /

Impatient? Why then belike it won't stay, 'till / [575] I pull off my Boots. Sweet-heart, can you help me to a / pair of Slippers?---My Man's with his Horses, I warrant. /

Fie, fie, Nephew, you wou'd not pull off your / Boots here---Go down into the Hall---Dinner shall stay / for you---My Nephew's a little unbred, you'll pardon / him, Madam---Gentlemen will you walk. Marwood--- /

I'll follow you, Madam---Before Sir Willfull / is ready. /

Why then Foible's a Bawd, an Errant, Rank, Match-making / Bawd. And I it seems am a Husband, a Rank-Husband; / and my Wife a very Errant, Rank-Wife,--- / all in the Way of the World. 'S death to be an Anticipated / Cuckold, a Cuckold in Embrio? Sure I was born with / budding Antlers like a young Satyre, or a Citizens Child. / 'S death to be Out-Witted, to be Out-Jilted---Out-Matrimony'd, / ---If I had kept my speed like a Stag, 'twere somewhat, / ---but to crawl after, with my Horns like a Snail, and / out-strip'd by my Wife---'tis Scurvy Wedlock. /

Then shake it off, You have often wish'd for / an opportunity to part;---and now you have it. But first / prevent their Plot,---the half of Millamant's Fortune is / too Considerable to be parted with, to a Foe, to Mirabell. /

Dam him, that had been mine---had you not / made that fond discovery---that had been forfeited, had / they been Married. My Wife had added Lustre to my / [600] Horns, by that Encrease of fortune,---I cou'd have worn / 'em tipt with Gold, tho' my forehead had been furnish'd / like a Deputy-Lieutenant's Hall. /

They may prove a Cap of Maintenance to / you still, if you can away with your Wife. And she's no / worse than when you had her---I dare swear she had / given up her Game, before she was Marry'd. /

Hum! That may be---She might throw up her / Cards; but Ile be hang'd if she did not put Pam in her / Pocket. /

You Married her to keep you; and if you / can contrive to have her keep you better than you expected; / why should you not keep her longer than you intended? /

The means, the means. /

Discover to my Lady your Wife's conduct; threaten / to part with her---My Lady loves her, and will come / to any Composition to save her reputation, take the opportunity / of breaking it, just upon the discovery of this imposture. / My Lady will be enraged beyond bounds, and Sacrifice / Neice, and Fortune, and all at that Conjuncture. And /

[Page 50]
let me alone to keep her warm, if she should Flag in her / part, I will not fail to prompt her. /

Faith this has an appearance. /

I'm sorry I hinted to my Lady to endeavour / a match between Millamant and Sir Wilfull, that may be / [625] an Obstacle. /

O, for that matter leave me to manage him; I'll / disable him for that, he will drink like a Dane: after dinner, / I'll set his hand in. /

Well, how do you stand affected towards / your Lady? /

Why faith I'm thinking of it.---Let me see---I / am married already; so that's over,---my Wife has plaid / the Jade with me---Well, that's over too---I never lov'd / her, or if I had, why that wou'd have been over too by / this time---Jealous of her I cannot be, for I am certain; / so there's an end of Jealousie. Weary of her, I am, and / shall be---No, there's no end of that; No, no, that were / too much to hope. Thus far concerning my repose. Now / for my Reputation,---As to my own, I married not for / it; so that's out of the Question,---And as to my part in / my Wife's---Why she had parted with hers before; so / bringing none to me, she can take none from me, 'tis against / all rule of Play, that I should lose to one, who has / not wherewithal to stake. /

Besides you forget, Marriage is honourable. /

Hum! Faith and that's well thought on; Marriage / is honourable as you say; and if so, Wherefore should / Cuckoldom be a discredit, being deriv'd from so honourable / a root? /

[650] Nay I know not; if the root be Honourable, / why not the Branches? /

So, so, why this point's clear,---Well how do we / proceed? /

I will contrive a Letter which shall be deliver'd / to my Lady at the time when that Rascal who is / to act Sir Rowland is with her. It shall come as from an / unknown hand---for the less I appear to know of the /

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truth---the better I can play the Incendiary. Besides I / would not have Foible provok'd if I cou'd help it,--- / because you know she knows some passages---Nay / I expect all will come out---But let the Mine be sprung / first, and then I care not if I'm discover'd. /

If the worst come to the worst,---I'll turn my / Wife to Grass---I have already a deed of Settlement of the / best part of her Estate; which I wheadl'd out of her; And / that you shall partake at least. /

I hope you are convinc'd that I hate Mirabell. / now you'll be no more Jealous. /

Jealous no,---by this Kiss---let Husbands be Jealous; / But let the Lover still believe. Or if he doubt, let / it be only to endear his pleasure, and prepare the Joy that / follows, when he proves his Mistress true; but let Husbands / doubts Convert to endless Jealousie; or if they have belief, / let it Corrupt to Superstition, and blind Credulity. / [675] I am single; and will herd no more with 'em. True, I / wear the badge; but I'll disown the Order. And since I / take my leave of 'em, I care not if I leave 'em a common / Motto, to their common Crest. /

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

[Scene Continues.]

Enter Lady Wishfort and Foible.

Is Sir Rowland coming say'st thou, Foible? and are / things in Order? /

Yes, Madam. I have put Wax-Lights in the Sconces; / and plac'd the Foot-men in a Row in the Hall, in their / best Liveries, with the Coach-man and Postilion to fill up / the Equipage. /

Have you pullvill'd the Coach-man and Postilion, / that they may not stink of the Stable, when Sir Rowland / comes by? /

Yes, Madam. /

And are the Dancers and the Musick ready, that / he may be entertain'd in all points with Correspondence to / his Passion? /

All is ready, Madam. /

And---well---and how do I look, Foible? /

Most killing well, Madam. /

Well, and how shall I receive him? In what figure / shall I give his Heart the first Impression? There is / a great deal in the first Impression. Shall I sit?---No I / won't sit---I'll walk---aye I'll walk from the door upon his / entrance; and then turn full upon him---No, that will be / too sudden. I'll lie---aye, I'll lie down---I'll receive him in / my little dressing Room, there's a Couch---Yes, yes, I'll / give the first Impression on a Couch---I wont lie neither / [25] but loll and lean upon one Elbow; with one Foot a little / dangling off, Jogging in a thoughtful way---Yes---and / then as soon as he appears, start, ay, start and be surpriz'd, / and rise: to meet him in a pretty disorder---Yes---O, /

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nothing is more alluring than a Levee from a Couch in / some Confusion.---It shews the Foot to advantage, and / furnishes with Blushes, and re-composing Airs beyond Comparison. / Hark! There's a Coach. /

'Tis he, Madam. /

O dear, has my Nephew made his Addresses to Millamant? / I order'd him. /

Sir Wilfull is set into Drinking, Madam, in the Parlour. /

Ods my life, I'll send him to her. Call her down, / Foible; bring her hither. I'll send him as I go---When / they are together, then come to me Foible, that I may not / be too long alone with Sir Rowland. /

Enter Mrs. Millamant, and Mrs. Fainall.

Madam, I stay'd here, to tell your Ladyship that / Mr. Mirabell has waited this half hour for an Opportunity / to talk with you. Tho' my Lady's Orders were to leave you / and Sir Wilfull together. Shall I tell Mr. Mirabell that you / are at leisure? /

No---What would the Dear man have? I am / thoughtfull and would amuse my self,---bid him come another / time. /
Repeating and Walking about.

There never yet was Woman made,
[50] Nor shall but to be curs'd. That's hard! /

You are very fond of Sir John Suckling to day, Millamant, / and the Poets. /

He? Ay, and filthy Verses---So I am. /

Sir Wilfull is coming, Madam. Shall I send Mr. Mirabell / away? /

Ay, if you please Foible, send him away,---Or / send him hither,---just as you will Dear Foible.---I think / I'll see him---Shall I? Ay, let the Wretch come. /
[Repeating.]

Thyrsis a Youth of the Inspir'd train--- Dear Fainall, Entertain Sir Wilfull---Thou hast Philosophy / to undergo a Fool, thou art Married and hast Patience--- / I would confer with my own Thoughts. /

I am oblig'd to you, that you would make me your / Proxy in this Affair; but I have business of my own. /

Enter Sir Wilfull.

O Sir Wilfull; you are come at the Critical Instant. / There's your Mistress up to the Ears in Love and Contemplation, / pursue your Point, now or never. /

Yes; my Aunt would have it so,---I would / gladly have been encouraged with a Bottle or two, because /
This while Mill. walks about Repeating to her self.
I'm somewhat wary at first, before I am / acquainted;---But I hope after a time, / I shall break my mind---that is upon / further acquaintance,---So for the present / [75] Cosen, I'll take my leave---If so be you'll / be so kind to make my Excuse, I'll return to my Company--- /

O fie Sir Wilfull! What, you must not be Daunted. /

Daunted, No, that's not it, it is not so much / for that---for if so be that I set on't, I'll do't. But only / for the present, 'tis sufficient till further acquaintance, / that's all---your Servant. /

Nay, I'll swear you shall never lose so favourable an / opportunity, if I can help it. I'll leave you together and lock / the Door. /

Nay, nay Cozen,---I have forgot my Gloves, / ---What dee do? 'Shart a'has lock'd the Door indeed I / think---Nay Cozen Fainall, open the Door---Pshaw, / What a Vixon trick is this?---Nay, now a'has seen me / too---Cozen, I made bold to pass thro' as it were,---I / think this Door's Inchanted---. /

Anan? Cozen, your Servant. /

---That foolish triflle of a heart---Sir Wilfull! /

Yes,---your Servant. No offence I hope, Cozen. /

Natural, easie Suckling! /

Anan? Suckling? No such Suckling neither, / [100] Cozen, nor Stripling: I thank Heav'n, I'm no Minor. /

Ah Rustick! ruder than Gothick. /

Well, Well, I shall understand your Lingo one / of these days, Cozen, in the mean while, I must answer in / plain English. /

Have you any business with me, Sir Wilfull? /

Not at present Cozen,---Yes, I made bold to / see, to come and know if that how you were dispos'd to / fetch a walk this Evening, if so be that I might not be troublesome, / I wou'd have fought a walk with you. /

A walk? What then? /

Nay nothing---Only for the walks sake, that's / all--- /

I Nauseate walking; 'tis a Country diversion, I / loath the Country and every thing that relates to it. /

Indeed! Hah! Look ye, look ye, you do? Nay, / 'tis like you may---Here are choice of Pastimes here in / Town, as Plays and the like that must be confess'd indeed.--- /

Ah l' etourdie! I hate the Town too. /

Dear Heart, that's much---Hah! that you / shou'd hate 'em both! Hah! 'tis like you may; there are / some can't relish the Town, and others can't away with / the Country,---'tis like you may be one of those, Cozen. /

Ha, ha, ha. Yes, 'tis like I may.---You have nothing / further to say to me? /

[125] Not at present, Cozen.---'tis like when I have / an Opportunity to be more private,---I may break my / mind in some measure,---I conjecture you partly guess / ---However that's as time shall try,---But spare to speak / and spare to speed, as they say. /

If it is of no great Importance, Sir Wilfull, you / will oblige me to leave me: I have just now a little business.--- /

Enough, enough, Cozen, Yes, yes, all a case--- / When you're dispos'd, when you're dispos'd. Now's as / well as another time; and another time as well as now. /

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All's one for that,---yes, yes, if your Concerns call you, / there's no hast; it will keep cold as they say,---Cosen, / your Servant, /

I think this door's lock'd. /

You may go this way Sir. /

Your Servant, then with your leave I'll return / to my Company. /

Ay, ay, ha, ha, ha. /

Like Phoebus sung the no less am'rous Boy.

Enter Mirabell.

Do you lock your self up from me, to make my search / more Curious? Or is this pretty Artifice Contriv'd, to Signifie / that here the Chase must end, and my pursuit be / Crown'd, for you can fly no further.--- /

Vanity! No---I'll fly and be follow'd to the / last moment, tho' I am upon the very Verge of Matrimony, / [150] I expect you shou'd solicite me as much as if I were wavering / at the grate of a Monastery, with one foot over the / threshold. I'll be solicited to the very last, nay and afterwards. /

What, after the last? /

O, I should think I was poor and had nothing to / bestow, If I were reduc'd to an Inglorious ease; and free'd / from the Agreeable fatigues of solicitation. /

But do not you know, that when favours are conferr'd / upon Instant and tedious Sollicitation, that they diminsh / in their value, and that both the giver loses the grace, / and the receiver lessens his Pleasure? /

It may be in things of common Application; but / never sure in Love. O, I hate a Lover, that can dare to / think, he draws a moments air, Independent on the Bounty / of his Mistress. There is not so Impudent a thing in / Nature, as the sawcy look of an assured man, Confident /

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of Success. The Pedantick arrogance of a very Husband, / has not so Pragmatical an Air. Ah! I'll never marry, unless / I am first made sure of my will and pleasure. /

Wou'd you have 'em both before Marriage? Or / will you be contented with the first now, and stay for the / other till after grace? /

Ah don't be Impertinent---My dear Liberty, shall / I leave thee? My faithful Solitude, my darling Contemplation / must I bid you then Adieu? ay-h adieu.---my morning / [175] thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent slumbers, all ye douceurs, / ye Someils du Matin adieu---I can't do't, 'tis more than / Impossible---positively Mirabel, I'll lie a Bed in a morning / as long as I please. /

Then I'll get up in a morning as early as I please. /

Ah! Idle Creature, get up when you will---and / dee hear, I won't be call'd names after I'm Married; positively / I won't be call'd Names. /

Names! /

Ay as Wife, Spouse, My dear, Joy, Jewel, Love, / Sweet heart and the rest of that Nauseous Cant, in which / Men and their Wives are so fulsomely familiar,---I shall / never bear that,---Good Mirabell don't let us be familiar / or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sr. / Francis: Nor goe to Hide-Park together the first Sunday in / a New Chariot, to provoke Eyes and Whispers; And then / never to be seen there together again; as if we were proud of / one another the first Week, and asham'd of one another for / ever After. Let us never Visit together, nor go to a Play / together, But let us be very strange and well bred: let us / be as strange as if we had been married a great while; and as / well bred as if we were not marri'd at all. /

Have you any more Conditions to offer? Hither-to / your demands are pretty reasonable. /

Trifles,---As liberty to pay and receive visits to / [200] and from whom I please, to write and receive Letters, / without Interrogatories or wry Faces on your part. To / wear what I please; and choose Conversation with regard / only to my own taste; to have no obligation upon me / to converse with Wits that I don't like, because they are /

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your acquaintance, or to be intimate with Fools, because / they may be your Relations. Come to Dinner when I / please, dine in my dressing room when I'm out of humour / without giving a reason. To have my Closet Inviolate; / to be sole Empress of my Tea-table, which you must never / presume to approach without first asking leave. And lastly, / where ever I am, you shall always knock at the door / before you come in. These Articles subscrib'd, If I continue / to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle / into a Wife. /

Your bill of fare is something advanc'd in this latter / account. Well, have I Liberty to offer Conditions---that / when you are dwindl'd into a Wife, I may not be beyond / Measure enlarg'd into a Husband? /

You have free leave; propose your utmost, speak and / spare not. /

I thank you. Inprimis then, I Covenant that your / acquaintance be General; that you admit no sworn Confident, / or Intimate of your own Sex; No she friend to skreen / her affairs under your Countenance and tempt you to make / [225] tryal of a Mutual Secresie. No Decoy-Duck to wheadle / you a fop---scrambling to the Play in a Mask---then / bring you home in a pretended fright, when you think you / shall be found out.---And rail at me for missing the Play, / and disappointing the Frolick which you had to pick me / up and prove my Constancy. /

Detestable Inprimis! I go to the Play in a Mask! /

Item, I Article, that you continue to like your own / Face, as long as I shall. And while it passes Current with / me, that you endeavour not to new. Coin it. To which / end, together with all Vizards for the day, I prohibit all / Masks for the Night, made of oil'd-skins and I know not / what---Hog's-bones, Hare's-gall, Pig-water, and the / marrow of a roasted Cat. In short, I forbid all Commerce / with the Gentlewoman in what-de-call-it-Court. Item, I shut / my doors against all Bauds with Baskets, and penny-worths of / Muslin, China, Fars, Atlases, &c.---Item when you shall be / Breeding.--- /

Ah! Name it not. /

Which may be presum'd, with a blessing on our / endeavours--- /

Odious endeavours! /

I denounce against all strait-Laceing, Squeezing for / a Shape, 'till you mold my boy's head like a Sugar-loaf; and / instead of a Man-child, make me the Father to a Crooked-billet. / [250] Lastly to the Dominion of the Tea-Table, I submit. / ---But with proviso, that you exceed not in your province; / but restrain your self to Native and Simple Tea-Table drinks, / as Tea, Chocolate and Coffee. As likewise to Genuine and, / Authoriz'd Tea-Table talk,---such as mending of Fashions / spoiling Reputations, railing at absent Friends, and so forth / ---but that on no account you encroach upon the mens / prerogative, and presume to drink healths, or toste fellows; / for prevention of which; I banish all Foreign Forces, all / Auxiliaries to the Tea-Table, as Orange-Brandy, all Anniseed, / Cinamon, Citron and Barbado's-Waters, together with Ratifia / and the most noble Spirit of Clary,---but for Couslip-Wine, / Poppy-Water and all Dormitives, those I allow,--- / these proviso's admitted, in other things I may prove a tractable / and complying Husband. /

O horrid proviso's! filthy strong Waters! I toste / fellows, Odious Men! I hate your Odious proviso's. /

Then wee're agreed. Shall I kiss your hand upon / the Contract? and here comes one to be a witness to the / Sealing of the Deed. /

Enter Mrs. Fainall.

Fainall, what shall I do? shall I have him? I think / I must have him. /

Ay, ay, take him, take him, what shou'd / you do? /

Well then---I'll take my death I'm in a horrid / [275] fright---Fainall, I shall never say it---well---I think--- / I'll endure you. /

Fy, fy, have him, have him, and tell him so in / plain terms. For I am sure you have a mind to him. /

Are you? I think I have---and the horrid Man / looks as if he thought so too---Well, you ridiculous thing / you, I'll have you,---I won't be kiss'd, nor I won't be / thank'd---here kiss my hand tho'---so hold your tongue / now, and don't say a word. /

Mirabell, there's a Necessity for your obedience; / ---You have neither time to talk noe stay. My Mother / is coming; and in my Conscience if she should see / you, wou'd fall into fits, and maybe not recover time enough / to return to Sir Rowland, who as Foible tells me is / in a fair way to succeed. Therefore spare your Extacies / for another occasion, and slip down the back-stairs, where / Foible waits to consult you. /

Ay, go, go. In the mean time I suppose you have / said something to please me. /

I am all Obedience. /

Yonder Sir Wilfull's Drunk; and so noisy / that my Mother has been forc'd to leave Sir Rowland to appease / him; But he answers her only with Singing and / Drinking---what they have done by this time I know not. / But Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came / [300] by. /

Well, If Mirabell shou'd not make a good Husband, / I am a lost thing;---for I find I love him violently. /

So it seems, when you mind not what's said / to you,---If you doubt him, you had best take up with / Sir Wilfull. /

How can you name that super-annuated Lubber, / soh! /

Enter Witwou'd from drinking.

So, Is the fray made up, that you have left / 'em? /

Left 'em? I cou'd stay no longer---I have laugh'd / like ten Christnings---I am tipsy with laughing---If I / had staid any longer I shou'd have burst,---I must have / been let out and piec'd in the sides like an unsiz'd Camlet, / ---Yes, yes the fray is compos'd; my Lady came in like / a Noli prosequi and stop't their proceedings. /

What was the dispute? /

That's the Jest, there was no dispute, they cou'd / neither of 'em speak for rage; And so fell a sputt'ring at / one another like two roasting Apples. /

Enter Petulant Drunk.

Now Petulant, all's over, all's well; Gad my head begins / to whim it about---Why dost thou not speak? thou / art both as drunk and as mute as a Fish. /

Look you Mrs. Millamant,---If you can love me / dear Nymph---say it---and that's the Conclusion--- / [325] pass on, or pass off,---that's all. /

Thou hast utter'd Volumes, Folio's, in less than / Decimo Sexto, my Dear Lacedemonian, Sirrah Petulant, / thou art an Epitomizer of words. /

Witwou'd---You are an anihilator of sense. /

Thou art a retailer of Phrases; and dost deal in / Remnants of Remnants, like a maker of Pincushions---thou / art in truth (Metaphorically speaking) A speaker of shorthand. /

Thou art (without a figure) Just one half of an Ass; / and Baldwin yonder, thy half Brother is the rest---A gemini / of Asses split, would make just four of you. /

Thou dodst bite my dear Mustard-feed; kiss me for / that. /

Stand off---I'll kiss no more Males,---I have / kiss'd your twin yonder in a humour of reconciliation, till / he (hiccap) rises upon my stomack like a Radish. /

Eh! filthy creature---what was the quarrel? /

There was no quarrel---there might have been a / quarrel. /

If there had been words enow between 'em to / have express'd provocation; they had gone together by the / Ears like a pair of Castanets. /

You were the Quarrel. /

Me! /

If I have a humour to Quarrel, I can make less matters / [350] conclude Premises,---If you are not handsom, what / then? If I have a humour to prove it.---If I shall have / my Reward, say so; if not, fight for your Face the next / time your self---I'll go sleep. /

Do, rap thy self up like a Wood-louse and dream Revenge / ---and hear me, if thou canst learn to write by to / morrow Morning, Pen me a Challenge---I'll carry it for / thee. /

Carry your Mistresses Monkey a Spider,---go flea / Dogs, and read Romances---I'll go to bed to my Maid. /

He's horridly drunk---how came you all / in this pickle?--- /

A plot, a plot, to get rid of the Knight,---your Husband's / advice; but he sneak'd off. /

Enter Lady and Sir Wilfull drunk.

Out upon't, out upon't, at years of Discretion, / and Comport your self at this Rantipole rate. /

No Offence Aunt. /

Offence? As I'm a Person, I'm asham'd of you, / ---Fogh! how you stink of Wine! Dee think my Neice / will ever endure such a Borachio! you'r an absolute Borachio. /

Borachio! /

At a time when you shou'd commence an Amour / and put your best foot foremost--- /

'Sheart, an you grutch me your Liquor, make a / Bill---Give me more drink and take my Purse. /

But if you wou'd have me Marry my Cosen,---say the / Word, and I'll do't---Wilfull will do't, that's the Word / ---Wilfull will do't, that's my Crest---my Motto I have / forgot. /

My Nephew's a little overtaken Cosen---but / 'tis with drinking your Health---O' my Word you are / oblig'd to him. /

In vino veritas Aunt,---If I drunk your / Health to day Cosen---I am a Borachio. But if you have / a mind to be Marry'd, say the Word, and send for the Piper, / Wilfull will do't. If not, dust it away, and let's have tother / round---Tony, Ods heart where's Tony---Tony's an / honest fellow, but he spits after a Bumper, and that's a / Fault. /

the Sun's a good Pimple, an honest Soaker, he has a Cellar / at your Antipodes. If I travel Aunt, I touch at your Antipodes / ---your Antipodes are a good rascally sort of topsy / turvy Fellows---If I had a Bumper I'd stand upon my /

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Head and drink a Health to 'em---A Match or no Match, / Cosen, with the hard Name,---Aunt, Wilfull will do't, / If she has her Maidenhead let her look to't,---if she / has not, let her keep her own Counsel in the mean time, and / cry out at the nine Months end. /

Your Pardon Madam, I can stay no longer--- / Sir Wilfull grows very powerful, Egh! how he smells! I / shall be overcome if I stay. / Come, Cosen. /

Smells! he would poison a Tallow-Chandler and / his Family. Beastly Creature, I know not what to do with / him---Travel quoth a; Ay travel, travel, get thee gone, / get thee but far enough, to the Saracens or the Tartars, / or the Turks---for thou are not fit to live in a Christian / Commonwealth, thou beastly Pagan. /

Turks, no; no Turks, Aunt: Your Turks are Infidels, / and believe not in the Grape. Your Mahometan, / your Mussulman is a dry Stinkard---No Offence, Aunt. / My Map says that your Turk is not so honest a Man as your / Christian---I cannot find by the Map that your Mufti is / [425] Orthodox---Whereby it is a plain Case, that Orthodox is / a hard Word, Aunt, and (hiccup) Greek for Claret. /

Ah Tony! /

Enter Foible, and whispers Lady.

Sir Rowland impatient? Good lack! what shall I / do with this beastly Tumbril?---Go lie down and sleep, / you Sot---Or as I'm a person, I'll have you bastinado'd with / Broom-sticks. Call up the Wenches. /

Ahey! Wenches, where are the Wenches? /

Dear Cosen Witwou'd, get him away, and you will / bind me to you inviolably. I have an Affair of moment / that invades me with some precipitation---You will oblige / me to all Futurity. /

Come Knight---Pox on him. I don't know what / to say to him---will you go to a Cock-match? /

With a Wench, Tony? Is she a shake-bag Sirrah? / let me bite your Cheek for that. /

Horrible! He has a breath like a Bagpipe---ay, ay, / [450] come will you March my Salopian? /

Lead on little Tony---I'll follow thee my Anthony, / My Tantony, Sirrah thou sha't be my Tantony; and I'll / be thy Pig. /

This will never do. It will never make a Match. / ---At least before he has been abroad. /

Enter Waitwell, disguis'd as for Sir Rowland.

Dear Sir Rowland, I am Confounded with Confusion at / the Retrospection of my own rudeness,---I have more pardons / to ask than the Pope distributes in the Year of Jubilee. / But I hope where there is likely to be so near an alliance, / ---We may unbend the severity of Decorum---and / dispence with a little Ceremony. /

My Impatience Madam, is the effect of my transport; / ---and till I have the possession of your adoreable /

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Person, I am tantaliz'd on a rack; And do but hang Madam, / on the tenter of Expectation. /

You have Excess of gallantry Sir Rowland; and / press things to a Conclusion, with a most prevailing Vehemence. / ---But a day or two for decency of Marriage--- /

For decency of Funeral, Madam. The delay will / break my heart---or if that should fail. I shall be Poyson'd. / My Nephew will get an inkling of my Designs / and Poison me,---and I wou'd willingly starve him before / I die---I wou'd gladly go out of the World with that / [475] Satisfaction.---That wou'd be some Comfort to me, If / I cou'd but live so long as to be reveng'd on that Unnatural / Viper. /

Is he so Unnatural say you? truely I wou'd Contribute / much both to the saving of your Life; and the accomplishment / of your revenge---Not that I respect my / self; tho' he has been a perfidious wretch to me. /

Perfidious to you! /

O Sir Rowland, the hours that he has dy'd away / at my Feet, the Tears that he has shed, the Oaths that he / has sworn, the Palpitations that he has felt, the Trances, / and the Tremblings, the Ardors and the Ecstacies, the / Kneelings and the Riseings, the Heart-heavings, and the / hand-Gripings, the Pangs and the Pathetick Regards of / his protesting Eyes! Oh no memory can Register. /

What, my Rival! is the Rebell my Rival? / a'dies. /

No, don't kill him at once Sir Rowland, starve / him gradually inch by inch. /

I'll do't. In three weeks he shall be bare-foot; / in a month out at knees with begging an Alms,---he / shall starve upward and upward, till he has nothing living / but his head, and then go out in a stink like a Candle's end / upon a Save-all. /

Well Sir Rowland, you have the way,---You are no / [500] Novice in the Labyrinth of Love---You have the Clue / ---But as I am a person, Sir Rowland, You must not attribute / my yielding to any sinister appetite, or Indigestion of Widdow-hood; /

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Nor Impute my Complacency, to any Lethargy / of Continence---I hope you do not think me prone to / any iteration of Nuptials.--- /

Far be it from me--- /

If you do, I protest I must recede---or think / that I have made a prostitution of decorums, but in the / Vehemence of Compassion, and to save the life of a Person / of so much Importance--- /

I esteem it so--- /

Or else you wrong my Condescension--- /

I do not, I do not--- /

Indeed you do. /

I do not, fair shrine of Vertue. /

If you think the least scruple of Carnality was an / Ingredient--- /

Dear Madam, no. You are all Camphire and Frankincense, / all Chastity and Odour. /

Or that--- /

Enter Foible.

Madam, the Dancers are ready, and there's one with / a Letter, who must deliver it into your own hands. /

Sir Rowland, will you give me leave? think favourably, / Judge Candidly and conclude you have found a Person / [525] who wou'd suffer racks in honour's cause, dear Sir Rowland, / and will wait on you Incessantly. /

Fie, fie!---What a Slavery have I undergone; / Spouse, hast thou any Cordial---I want Spirits. /

What a washy Rogue art thou, to pant thus for / a quarter of an hours lying and swearing to a fine Lady? /

O, she is the Antidote to desire. Spouse, thou will't / fare the worse for't---I shall have no appetite to interation / of Nuptials---this eight and fourty Hours---by this hand / I'd rather be a Chair-man in the Dog-days---than Act Sir / Rowland, till this time to morrow. /

Enter Lady with a Letter.

Call in the Dancers;---Sir Rowland, we'll sit if / you please, and see the Entertainment. /

Dance.

Now with your permission Sir Rowland I will peruse my / Letter---I wou'd open it in your presence, because I / wou'd not make you Uneasie. If it shou'd make you Uneasie / I wou'd burn it---speak if it do's---but you may / see by the Superscription it is like a Woman's hand. /

By Heaven! Mrs. Marwood's, I know it,---my / heart akes---get it from her---[to him.] /

A Woman's hand? No Madam, that's no Woman's / hand I see that already. That's some body whose throat must / be cut. /

Nay Sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of / your Passion by your Jealousie, I promise you I'll make you / [550] a return, by a frank Communication---You shall see it / ---wee'll open it together---look you here. /

Reads---Madam, tho' unknown to you [Look you there 'tis from no body that I know] / ---I have that honour for / your Character, that I think my self oblig'd to let you / know you are abus'd. He who pretends to be Sir Rowland / is a cheat and a Rascal.--- /

Oh Heavens! what's this? /

Unfortunate, all's ruin'd. /

How, how, Let me see, let me see---reading A / Rascal and disguis'd and subborn'd for that imposture,---O villany / O villany!---by the Contrivance of--- /

I shall faint, I shall die, I shall die, oh! /

Say 'tis your Nephew's hand.---quickly, his plot, / swear, swear it.---[to him. /

Here's a Villain! Madam, don't you perceive it, / don't you see it? /

Too well, too well. I have seen too much. /

I told you at first I knew the hand---A Womans / hand? the Rascal writes a sort of a large hand; your / Roman hand---I saw there was a throat to be cut presently. / If he were my Son as he is my Nephew I'd Pistoll / him--- /

O Treachery! But are you sure Sir Rowland, it is / his writing? /

[575] Sure? am I here? do I live? do I love this Pearl / of India? I have twenty Letters in my Pocket from him, / in the same Character. /

How! /

O what luck it is Sir Rowland, that you were present / at this Juncture! this was the business that brought / Mr. Mirabell disguis'd to Madam Millamant this Afternoon. / I thought something was contriving, when he stole by me / and would have hid his face. /

How, how!---I heard the Villain was in the house / indeed, and now I remember, my Niece went away / abruptly, when Sir Wilfull was to have made his addresses. /

Then, then Madam, Mr. Mirabell waited for her / in her Chamber, but I wou'd not tell your Lady-ship to / discompose you when you were to receive Sir Rowland. /

Enough, his date is short. /

No, good Sir Rowland, don't incurr the Law. /

Law? I care not for Law. I can but die, and 'tis / in a good cause---my Lady shall be satisfied of my Truth / and Innocence, tho' it cost me my life. /

No, dear Sir Rowland, don't fight, if you shou'd be / kill'd I must never shew may face or hang'd,---O Consider / my Reputation Sir Rowland---No you shan't fight, / ---I'll go in and Examine my Niece; I'll make her / Confess. I conjure you Sir Rowland by all your love not / [600] to fight. /

I am Charm'd Madam, I obey. But some proof / you must let me give you;---I'll go for a black box, which / Contains the Writings of my whole Estate, and deliver / that into your hands. /

Ay dear Sir Rowland, that will be some Comfort; / bring the Black-box. /

And may I presume to bring a Contract to be / sign'd this Night? May I hope so farr? /

Bring what you will; but come alive, pray come / alive. O this is a happy discovery. /

Dead or Alive I'll come---and married we will / be in spight of treachery; Ay and get an Heir that shall / defeat the last remaining glimpse of hope in my abandon'd / Nephew. Come my Buxom Widdow. /

ACT V.

SCENE I.

[Scene Continues.]

Lady Wishfort and Foible.

Out of my house, out of my house, thou Viper, / thou Serpent, that I have foster'd, thou bosome tray--- / tress, that I rais'd from nothing---begon, begon, begon, go, go,--- / that I took from Washing of old Gause and Weaving of / dead Hair, with a bleak blew Nose, over a Chafeing-dish / of starv'd Embers and Dining behind a Traver's Rag, / in a shop no bigger than a Bird-cage,---go, go, starve / again, do, do. /

Dear Madam, I'll beg pardon on my knees. /

Away, out, out, go set up for your self again--- / do, drive a Trade, do, with your three penny worth of small / Ware, flaunting upon a Packthread, under a Brandy-sellers / Bulk, or against a dead Wall by a Ballad-monger. Go / hang out an old Frisoncer-gorget, with a yard of Yellow / Colberteen again; do; an old gnaw'd Mask, two rowes of / Pins and a Childs Fiddle; A Glass Necklace with the Beads / broken, and a Quilted Night-cap with one Ear. Go, go, / drive a trade,---these were your Commodities you treacherous / Trull, this was your Merchandize you dealt in, / when I took you into my house, plac'd you next my self / And made you Governante of my whole Family. You have / forgot this, have you? Now you have feather'd your / Nest. /

No, no, dear Madam. Do but hear me, have but / [25] a Moment's patience---I'll Confess all. Mr. Mirabell seduc'd / me; I am not the first that he has wheadl'd with his dissembling / Tongue; Your Lady-ship's own Wisdom has been /

[Page 72]
deluded by him, then how shou'd I a poor Ignorant, defend / my self? O Madam, If you knew but what he promis'd me; / and how he assur'd me your Ladyship shou'd come to no / damage---Or else the Wealth of the Indies shou'd / not have brib'd me to conspire against so Good, so Sweet, / so kind a Lady as you have been to me. /

No damage? What to Betray me, to Marry me / to a Cast-serving-man; to make me a receptacle, an Hospital / for a decay'd Pimp? No damage? O thou frontless Impudence, / more than a big-Belly'd Actress. /

Pray do but here me Madam, he cou'd not marry / your Lady-ship, Madam---No indeed his Marriage was / to have been void in Law; for he was married to me first, / to secure your Lady-ship. He cou'd not have bedded your / Lady-ship: for if he had Consummated with your Lady-ship; / he must have run the risque of the Law, and been / put upon his Clergy---Yes indeed, I enquir'd of the Law / in that case before I wou'd meddle or make. /

What, then I have been your Property, have I? I / have been convenient to you it seems,---while you were / Catering for Mirabell; I have been broaker for you? What, / have you made a passive Bawd of me?---this Exceeds / [50] all precedent; I am brought to fine uses, to become a botcher / of second hand Marriages, between Abigails and Andrews! / I'll couple you, Yes, I'll baste you together, you and / your Philander. I'll Dukes-Place you, as I'm a Person. Your / Turtle is in Custody already; You shall Coo in the same / Cage, if there be Constable or warrant in the Parish. /

O that ever I was Born, O that I was ever Married, / ---a Bride, ay I shall be a Bridewell-Bride. Oh! /

Enter Mrs. Fainall.

Poor Foible, what's the matter? /

O Madam, my Lady's gone for a Constable; I shall / be had to a Justice, and put to Bridewell to beat Hemp, poor / Waitwell's gone to prison already. /

Have a good heart Foible, Mirabell's gone to / give security for him, this is all Marwood's and my Husband's / doing. /

Yes, yes; I know it Madam; she was in my Lady's / Closet, and over-heard all that you said to me before Dinner. / She sent the Letter to my Lady, and that missing Effect, / Mr. Fainall laid this Plot to arrest Waitwell, when he pretended / to go for the Papers; and in the mean time Mrs. Marwood / declar'd all to my Lady. /

Was there no mention made of me in the / Letter?---My Mother do's not suspect my being in the / Confederacy? I fancy Marwood has not told her, tho' she / has told my husband. /

[75] Yes Madam; but my Lady did not see that part; / We stifl'd the Letter before she read so far. Has that mischeivous / Devil told Mr. Fainall of your Ladyship then? /

Ay, all's out, My affair with Mirabell, every / thing discover'd. This is the last day of our liveing / together, that's my Comfort. /

Indeed Madam, and so 'tis a Comfort if you knew / all,---he has been even with your Ladyship; which I / cou'd have told your long enough since, but I love to keep / Peace and Quietness by my good will: I had rather bring / friends together, than set 'em at distance. But Mrs. Marwood / and He are nearer related than ever their Parents / thought for. /

Say'st thou so Foible? Canst thou prove / this? /

I can take my Oath of it Madam, so can Mrs. Mincing; / we have had many a fair word from Madam Marwood, / to conceal something that pass'd in our Chamber one Evening / when you were at Hide-Park;---And we were thought / to have gone a Walking: But we went up unawares,-tho' we / were sworn to secresie too; Madam Marwood took a Book and / swore us upon it: But it was but a Book of Verses and Poems, / ---So as long as it was not a Bible-Oath, we may break it / with a safe Conscience. /

This discovery is the most opportune thing / [100] I cou'd wish. Now Mincing? /

Enter Mincing.

My Lady wou'd speak with Mrs. Foible, Mem. Mr. / Mirabell is with her, he has set your Spouse at liberty Mrs. / Foible; and wou'd have you hide your self in my Lady's / Closet, till my old Lady's anger is abated. O, my old Lady / is in a perilous passion, at something Mr. Fainall has said, / He swears, and my old Lady cry's. There's a fearful Hurricane / I vow. He says Mem; how that hell have my / Lady's Fortune made over to him, or he'll be divorc'd. /

Do's your Lady and Mirabell know that? /

Yes Mem, they have sent me to see if Sir Wilfull / be sober, and to bring him to them. My Lady is resolv'd / to have him I think, rather than loose such a vast Summ / as six thousand Pound. O, come Mrs. Foible, I hear my old / Lady. /

Foible, you must tell Mincing, that she must / prepare to vouch when I call her. /

Yes, yes Madam. /

O yes Mem, I'll vouch any thing for your Lady-ship's / service, be what it will. /

Enter Lady and Marwood.

O my dear Friend, how can I Enumerate the benefits / that I have receiv'd from your goodness? To you I / owe the timely discovery of the false vows of Mirabell; To / you the Detection of the Impostor Sir Rowland. And now / you are become an Intercessor with my Son in-Law, to save / [125] the Honour of my House, and Compound for the frailty's / of my Daughter. Well Friend, You are enough to reconcile / me to the bad World, or else I wou'd retire to Desarts / and Solitudes; and feed harmless Sheep by Groves and Purling /

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Streams. Dear Marwood, let us leave the World, and / retire by our selves and be Sheperdresses. /

Let us first dispatch the affair in hand Madam, / we shall have leisure to think of Retirement afterwards. / Here is one who is concern'd in the treaty. /

O Daughter, Daughter, Is it possible thou shoud'st / be my Child, Bone of my Bone, and Flesh of my Flesh, / and as I may say, another Me, and yet transgress the / most minute Particle of severe Vertue? Is it possible you / should lean aside to Iniquity who have been Cast in the direct / Mold of Vertue? I have not only been a Mold but a / Pattern for you, and a Model for you, after you were / brought into the World. /

I don't understand your Ladyship. /

Not understand? Why have you not been Naught? / Have you not been Sophisticated? Not understand? Here / I am ruin'd to Compound for your Caprices and your Cuckoldomes. / I must pawn my Plate, and my Jewells and ruine / my Neice, and all little enough--- /

I am wrong'd and abus'd, and so are you. 'Tis / a false accusation, as false as Hell, as false as your Friend / [150] there, ay or your Friend's Friend, my false Husband. /

My Friend, Mrs. Fainal? Your Husband my / Friend, what do you mean? /

I know what I mean Madam, and so do you; / and so shall the World at a time Convenient. /

I am sorry to see you so passionate, Madam. / More Temper wou'd look more like Innocence. But I / have done. I am sorry my Zeal to serve your Ladyship and / Family, shou'd admit of Misconstruction, or make me liable / to affronts. You will pardon me, Madam, If I meddle / no more with an affair, in which I am not Personally concern'd. /

O dear Friend; I am so asham'd that you should / meet with such returns;---you ought to ask Pardon on / your Knees, Ungratefull Creature; she deserves more from /

[Page 76]
you, than all your life can accomplish---O don't leave me / destitute in this Perplexity;---No, stick to me my good Genius. /

I tell you Madam you're abus'd---stick to you? / ay, like a Leach, to suck your best Blood---she'll drop off / when she's full. Madam you sha'not pawn a Bodkin, nor / part with a Brass Counter in Composition for me. I defie / 'em all. Let 'em prove their aspersions; I know my own / Innocence, and dare stand by a tryall. /

Why, If she shou'd be Innocent, If she shou'd be / wrong'd after all, ha? I don't know what to think,---and / I promise you, her Education has been unexceptionable--- / [175] I may say it; for I chiefly made it my own Care to Initiate / her very Infancy in the Rudiments of Vertue, and to / Impress upon her tender Years, a Young Odium and Aversion / to the very sight of Men,---ay Friend, she wou'd ha' / shriek'd, If she had but seen a Man, till she was in her / Teens. As I'm a Person 'tis true---She was never suffer'd / to play with a Male-Child, tho' but in Coats; Nay her very / Babies were of the Feminine Gender;---O, she never look'd / a Man in the Face but, her own Father, or the Chaplain, / and him we made a shift to put upon her for a Woman, by / the help of his long Garments, and his Sleek-face; till she / was going in her fifteen. /

Twas much she shou'd be deceiv'd so / long. /

I warrant you, or she wou'd never have born to / have been Catechis'd by him; and have heard his long / lectures, against Singing and Dancing, and such Debaucheries; / and going to filthy Plays; and Profane Musick-meetings, / where the Leud Trebles squeek nothing but Bawdy, and / the Bases roar Blasphemy. O, she wou'd have swooned at the / sight or name of an obscene Play-Book---and can I think / after all this, that my Daughter can be Naught? What, a / Whore? And thought it excommunication to set her foot /

[Page 77]
within the door of a Play-house. O my dear friend, I can't / believe it, No, no; as she says, let him prove it, let him / [200] prove it. /

Prove it Madam? What, and have your name / prostituted in a publick Court; Yours and your Daughters / reputation worry'd at the Barr by a pack of Bawling Lawyers? / To be usherd in with an O Yez of Scandal; and have / your Case open'd by an old fumbling Leacher in a Quoif / like a Man Midwife to bring your Daughter's Infamy to / light, to be a Theme for legal Punsters, and Quiblers by the / Statute; and become a Jest, against a Rule of Court, where / there is no precedent for a Jest in any record; not even in / Dooms-day-Book: to discompose the gravity of the Bench, / and provoke Naughty Interrogatories, in more Naughty / Law Latin; while the good Judge tickl'd with the proceeding, / Simpers under a Grey beard, and fidges off and on / his Cushion as if he had swallow'd Cantharides, or sat upon / Cow-Itch. /

O, 'tis very hard! /

And then to have my Young Revellers of the / Temple, take Notes like Prentices at a Conventicle; and after, / talk it all over again in Commons, or before Drawers in / an Eating-house. /

Worse and Worse. /

Nay this is nothing; if it wou'd end here, / 'twere well. But it must after this be consign'd by the / Short-hand Writers to the publick Press; and from thence / [225] be transferr'd to the hands, nay into the Throats and Lungs / of Hawkers, with Voices more Licentious than the loud / Flounder-man's or the Woman that crys Grey-pease; and this / you must hear till you are stunn'd; Nay you must hear nothing / else for some days. /

O, 'tis Insupportable. No, no, dear Friend make it / up, make it up; ay, ay, I'll Compound. I'll give up all, / my self and my all, my Neice and her all,---any thing, every / thing for Composition. /

Nay Madam, I advise nothing, I only lay before / you as a Friend the Inconveniencies which perhaps / you have Overseen. Here comes Mr. Fainall. If he will / be satisfi'd to huddle up all in Silence, I shall be glad. / You must think I would rather Congratulate, then Condole / with you. /

Enter Fainall.

Ay, ay, I do not doubt it, dear Marwood: No, / no, I do not doubt it. /

Well Madam; I have suffer'd my self to be overcome / by the Importunity of this Lady your Friend; and am / content you shall enjoy your own proper Estate during / Life; on condition you oblige your self never to Marry, / under such penalty as I think convenient. /

Never to Marry? /

No more Sir Rowlands,---the next Imposture / may not be so timely detected. /

[250] That condition I dare answer, my Lady / will consent to, without difficulty; she has already, but / too much experienc'd the perfidiousness of Men. Besides / Madam, when we retire to our pastoral Solitude we shall / bid adieu to all other Thoughts. /

Aye that's true; but in Case of Necessity; as of / Health, or some such Emergency--- /

O, if you are prescrib'd Marriage, you shall be consider'd; / I will only reserve to my self the Power to chuse / for you. If your Physick be wholsome, it matters not / who is your Apothecary. Next, my Wife shall settle on / me the remainder of her Fortune, not made over already; / And for her Maintenance depend entirely on my Discretion. /

This is most inhumanly Savage; exceeding the Barbarity / of a Muscovite Husband. /

I learn'd it from his Czarish Majestie's Retinue, in / a Winter Evenings Conference over Brandy and Pepper, amongst /

[Page 79]
other secrets of Matrimony and Policy, as they are / at present Practis'd in the Northern Hemisphere. But this / must be agreed unto, and that positively. Lastly, I will / be endow'd in right of my Wife, with that six thousand / Pound, which is the Moiety of Mrs. Millamant's Fortune / in your Possession: And which she has forfeited (as will / appear by the last Will and Testament of your deceas'd / Husband Sir Jonathan Wishfort) by her disobedience in / [275] Contracting her self against your Consent or Knowledge; / and by refusing the offer'd Match with Sir Willful Witwou'd, / which you like a careful Aunt had provided for her. /

My Nephew was non Compos; and cou'd not / make his Addresses. /

I come to make demands,---I'll hear no objections. /

You will grant me time to Consider. /

Yes, while the Instrument is drawing, to which / you must set your Hand till more sufficient Deeds can be / perfected, which I will take care shall be done with all possible / speed. In the mean while, I will go for the said Instrument, / and till my return, you may Ballance this Matter / in your own Discretion. /

This Insolence is beyond all Precedent, all Parallel, / must I be subject to this merciless Villain? /

'Tis severe indeed Madam, that you shou'd / smart for your Daughters wantonness. /

'Twas against my Consent that she Married this / Barbarian, But she wou'd have him, tho' her Year was not / out.---Ah! her first Husband my Son Languish, would / not have carry'd it thus. Well, that was my Choice, this / is her's; she is match'd now with a Witness---I shall be / mad, Dear Friend, is there no Comfort for me? Must I / live to be confiscated at this Rebel-rate?---Here come two / more of my Egyptian Plagues too. /

Enter Millamant and Sir. Willfull.

[300] Aunt, your Servant. /

Out Caterpillar, Call not me Aunt, I know thee / not. /

I confess I have been a little in disguise as they / say,---S'heart! and I'm sorry for't. What wou'd you have? / I hope I committed no Offence Aunt---and if I did I am / willing to make satisfaction; and what can a man say / fairer? If I have broke any thing, I'll pay for't, an it cost a / Pound. And so let that content for what's past, and make / no more words. For what's to come to pleasure you I'm / willing to marry my Cosen. So pray lets all be Friends, / she and I are agreed upon the matter, before a Witness. /

How's this dear Niece? Have I any comfort? Can / this be true? /

I am content to be a Sacrifice to your repose Madam; / and to Convince you that I had no hand in the Plot, / as you were misinform'd; I have laid my commands on / Mirabell to come in Person, and be a Witness that I give / my hand to this flower of Knight-hood; and for the Contract / that past between Mirabell and me, I have oblig'd / him to make a Resignation of it, in your Lady-ship's presence; / ---He is without and waits your leave for admittance. /

Well, I'll swear I am something reviv'd at this / Testimony of your Obedience; but I cannot admit that / Traytor,---I fear I cannot fortifie my self to support his appearance. / [325] He is as terrible to me as a Gorgon; if I see him, / I fear I shall turn to Stone, petrifie Incessantly. /

If you disoblige him he may resent your refusal / and insist upon the contract still. Then 'tis the last time / he will be offensive to you. /

Are you sure it will be the last time?---if I were / sure of that---shall I never see him again? /

Sir Willful, you and he are to Travel together, are / you not? /

'Sheart the Gentleman's a civil Gentleman, / Aunt, let him come in; why we are sworn Brothers and / fellow Travellers.---We are to be Pylades and Orestes, he / and I---He is to be my Interpreter in foreign Parts. He / has been Over-sea's once already; and with proviso that I / Marry my Cosen, will cross 'em once again, only to bear / me Company,---'Sheart, I'll call him in,---an I set on't / once, he shall come in; and see who'll hinder him. /

This is precious Fooling, if it wou'd pass, but / I'll know the bottom of it. /

O dear Marwood, you are not going? /

Not far Madam; I'll return immediately. /

Re-enter Sir Willful and Mirabell.

Look up Man, I'll stand by you, 'sbud an she / do frown, she can't kill you;---besides---Hearkee she / dare not frown desperately, because her face is none of her / own; 'Sheart an she shou'd her forehead wou'd wrinkle like / [350] the Coat of a Cream-cheese, but mum for that, fellow / Traveller. /

If a deep sense of the many Injuries I have offer'd to / so good a Lady, with a sincere remorse, and a hearty Contrition, / can but obtain the least glance of Compassion I am / too Happy,---Ah Madam, there was a time---but let it be / forgotten---I confess I have deservedly forfeited the high / Place I once held, of sighing at your Feet; nay kill me not, / by turning from me in disdain,---I come not to plead for / favour;---Nay not for Pardon, I am a Suppliant only for / your pity---I am going where I never shall behold you / more--- /

How, fellow Traveller!---You shall go by your / self then. /

Let me be pitied first; and afterwards forgotten, / ---I ask no more. /

By'r Lady a very reasonable request; and will cost / you nothing, Aunt---Come, come, Forgive and Forget / Aunt, why you must an you are a Christian. /

Consider Madam, in reality; You cou'd not receive / much prejudice; it was an Innocent device; tho' I confess / it had a Face of guiltiness,---it was at most an Artifice which / Love Contriv'd---and errours which Love produces have / ever been accounted Venial. At least think it is Punishment / enough, that I have lost what in my heart I hold most dear, / [375] that to your cruel Indignation, I have offer'd up this Beauty, / and with her my Peace and Quiet; Nay all my hopes of / future Comfort. /

An he do's not move me, wou'd I might never / be O' the Quorum---an it were not as good a deed as to drink, / to give her to him again,---I wou'd I might never take / Shipping---Aunt, if you don't forgive quickly; I shall / melt, I can tell you that. My contract went no further / than a little Mouth-Glew, and that's hardly dry;---One / dolefull Sigh more from my fellow Traveller and 'tis dissolv'd. /

Well Nephew, upon your account---ah, he has a / false Insinuating Tongue---Well Sir, I will stifle my just / resentment at my Nephew's request.---I will endeavour what / I can to forget,---but on proviso that you resign the Contract / with my Neice Immediately. /

It is in Writing and with Papers of Concern; but / I have sent my Servant for it, and will deliver it to you, / with all acknowledgments for your transcendent goodness. /

Oh, he has Witch-craft in his Eyes and Tongue;--- / When I did not see him I cou'd have brib'd a Villain to / his Assassination; but his appearance rakes the Embers which /

[Page 83]
have so long layn smother'd in my Breast.---[apart. /

Enter Fainall and Mrs. Marwood.

Your date of deliberation Madam, is expir'd. Here / is the Instrument, are you prepar'd to sign? /

If I were prepar'd; I am not Impowr'd. My / [400] Neice exerts a lawfull claim, having Match'd her self by / my direction to Sir Wilfull. /

That sham is too gross to pass on me,---tho 'tis / Impos'd on you, Madam. /

Sir, I have given my consent. /

And Sir, I have resign'd my pretensions. /

And Sir, I assert my right; and will maintain / it in defiance of you Sir, and of your Instrument. S'heart / an you talk of an Instrument Sir, I have an old Fox by / my Thigh shall hack your Instrument of Ram Vellam to / shreds, Sir. It shall not be sufficient for a Mittimus or a / Taylor's measure; therefore withdraw your Instrument Sir, / or by'r Lady I shall draw mine. /

Hold Nephew, hold. /

Good Sir, Wilfull respite your valour. /

Indeed? are you provided of a Guard, with your single / Beef-eater there? but I'm prepar'd for you; and Insist / upon my first proposal. You shall submit your own Estate / to my management, And absolutely make over my Wife's / to my sole use; As pursuant to the Purport and Tenor of / this other Covenant,---I suppose Madam, your Consent is / not requisite in this Case; nor Mr. Mirabell, your resignation; / nor Sir. Wilfull, your right---You may draw your Fox / if you please Sir, and make a Bear-Garden flourish somewhere / else; For here it will not avail. This my Lady / [425] Wishfor't must be subscrib'd, or your Darling Daughter's / turn'd a drift, like a Leaky hulk ro Sink or Swim, as she / and the Current of this Lewd Town can agree. /

Is there no means, no Remedy, to stop my ruine? / Ungrateful Wretch! dost thou not owe thy being, thy /

[Page 84]
subsistance to my Daughter's Fortune? /

I'll answer you when I have the rest of it in my / possession. /

But that you wou'd not accept of a Remedy from / my hands---I own I have not deserv'd you shou'd owe / any Obligation to me; or else perhaps I cou'd advise.--- /

O what? what? to save me and my Child from / Ruine, from Want, I'll forgive all that's past; Nay I'll consent / to any thing to come, to be deliver'd from this Tyranny. /

Ay Madam; but that is too late, my reward is intercepted. / You have dispos'd of her, who only cou'd / have made me a Compensation for all my Services;---But / be it as it may. I am resolv'd I'll serve you, you shall not / be wrong'd in this Savage manner. /

How! dear Mr. Mirabell, can you be so generous / at last! But it is not possible. Hearkee. I'll break my Nephews / Match, you shall have my Niece yet, and all her fortune; / if you can but save me from this imminent danger. /

Will you? I take you at you word. I ask no more. / I must have leave for two Criminals to appear. /

[450] Ay, ay, any Body, any body. /

Foible is one and a Penitent. /

Enter Mrs. Fainall, Foible, and Mincing.

O my shame! These Corrupt / things are bought and brought hither to expose / me---[to Fain.] /

If it must all come out, why let 'em know it, 'tis / but the way of the World. That shall not urge me to / relinquish or abate one tittle of my Terms, no, I will insist / the more. /

Yes indeed Madam; I'll take my Bible-oath of / it. /

And so will I, Mem. /

O Marwood, Marwood art thou false? my friend deceive / me? hast thou been a wicked accomplice with that / profligate man? /

Have you so much Ingratitude and Injustice, / to give credit against your Friend, to the Aspersions of two / such Mercenary Truls? /

Mercenary, Mem? I scorn your words. 'Tis true / we found you and Mr. Fainall in the Blew garret, by the / same token, you swore us to Secresie upon Messalinas's Poems, / Mercenary? No, if we wou'd have been Mercenary; / we shou'd have held our Tongues; You wou'd have brib'd / us sufficiently. /

Go, you are an Insignificant thing,---Well, what / [475] are you the better for this? Is this Mr. Mirabell's Expedient? / I'll be put off no longer---You thing that was a Wife, / shall smart for this. I will not leave thee wherewithall to / hide thy Shame; Your Body shall be Naked as your Reputation. /

I despise you and defie your Malice---You / have aspers'd me wrongfully---I have prov'd your falsehood / ---Go you and your treacherous---I will not name it, / but starve together---perish. /

Not while you are worth a Groat, indeed my dear. / Madam, I'll be fool'd no longer. /

Ah Mr. Mirabell, this is small comfort, the detection / of this affair. /

O in good time---Your leave for the other Offender / and Penitent to appear, Madam. /

Enter Waitwell with a Box of Writings.

O Sir Rowland---well Rascal. /

What your Ladyship pleases.---I have brought / the Black box at last, Madam. /

Give it me. Madam, you remember your promise. /

I, dear Sir! /

Where are the Gentlemen? /

At hand Sir, rubbing their Eyes,---Just risen / from Sleep. /

S'death what's this to me? I'll not wait your private / concerns. /

Enter Petulant and Witwoud.

How now? what's the matter? who's hand's / [500] out? /

Hey day! what are you all got together like Players / at the end of the last Act? /

You may remember Gentlemen, I once requested / your hands as Witnesses to a certain Parchment. /

Ay I do, my hand I remember---Petulant set his / Mark. /

You wrong him, his name is fairly written as shall / appear---you do not remember Gentlemen, any thing of / what that Parchment contain'd---[undoing the Box.] /

No. /

Not I. I writ. I read nothing. /

Very well, now you shall know---Madam, your / promise. /

Ay, ay, Sir, upon my honour. /

Mr. Fainall, it is now time that you shou'd know, / that your Lady while she was at her own disposal, and before / you had by your Insinuations wheadl'd her out of a pretended / Settlement of the greatest part of her fortune--- /

Sir! pretended! /

Yes Sir. I say that this Lady while a Widdow, / having it seems receiv'd some Cautions respecting your Inconstancy / and Tyranny of temper, which from her own / partial Opinion and fondness of you, she cou'd never have / suspected---she did I say by the wholesome advice of Friends / [525] and of Sages learned in the Laws of this Land, deliver this / same as her Act and Deed to me in trust, and to the uses / within mention'd. You may read if you please---[holding

[Page 87]
out the Parchment.] / tho perhaps what is inscrib'd on the back / may serve your occasions. /

Very likely Sir, What's here? Damnation! /

[Reads] A deed of Conveyance of the whole Estate real / of Arabella Languish Widdow in trust to Edward / Mirabell. /

Confusion! /

Even so Sir, 'tis the way of the World, Sir: of the / Widdows of the World. I suppose this Deed may bear an / Elder Date than what you have obtain'd from your Lady. /

Perfidious Fiend! then thus I'll be reveng'd.---[offers to run at Mrs Fain.] /

Hold Sir, now you may make your Bear-Garden / flourish somewhere else Sir. /

Mirabell, You shall hear of this Sir, be sure you shall, / let me pass Oafe. /

Madam, you seem to stifle your Resentment: / You had better give it Vent. /

Yes it shall have Vent---and to your Confusion, / or I'll perish in the attempt. /

O Daughter, Daughter, 'tis plain thou hast inherited / thy Mother's prudence. /

Thank Mr. Mirabell, a Cautious Friend, to / [550] whose advice all is owing. /

Well Mr. Mirabell, you have kept your promise, / ---and I must perform mine.---First I pardon for your / sake, Sir Rowland there and Foible,---The next thing is / to break the Matter to my Nephew---and how to do / that--- /

For that Madam, give your self no trouble---let / me have your Consent---Sir Wilfull is my Friend; he / has had compassion upon Lovers and generously engag'd a / Volunteer in this Action, for our Service, and now designs / to prosecute his Travells. /

S'heart Aunt, I have no mind to marry. My / Cosen's a Fine Lady, and the Gentleman loves her and she / loves him, and they deserve one another; my resolution is / to see Foreign Parts---I have set on't---And when / I'm set on't, I must do't. And if these two Gentlemen / wou'd Travel too, I think they may be spar'd. /

For my part, I say little---I think things are best / off or on. /

I Gad I understand nothing of the matter,---I'm / in a maze yet, like a Dog in a Dancing School. /

Well Sir, take her, and with her all the Joy I can / give. you. /

Why do's not the man take me? wou'd you have / me give my self to you over again. /

[575] Ay, and over and over again; for / I wou'd have you as often as possibly I can. /
                                        Kisses her hand.
Well, heav'n grant I love you not too well, that's all my / fear. /

S'heart you'll have him time enough to toy after / you're married; or if you will toy now; Let us have a / Dance in the mean time, that we who are not Lovers, may / have some other employment, besides looking on. /

With all my heart dear Sir Willfull, what shall we / do for Musick? /

O Sir, Some that were provided for Sir Rowland's / Entertainment are yet within Call. /

A Dance.

As I am a person I can hold out no longer;---I / have wasted my spirits so to day already; that I am / ready to sink under the fatigue; and I cannot but have / some fears upon me yet, that my Son Fainall will pursue / some desperate Course. /

Madam, disquiet not your self on that account, to my / knowledge his Circumstances are such, he must of force / comply. For my part I will Contribute all that in me lies / to a Reunion, in the mean time, Madam, let me /
                                        [To Mrs. Fain.
before these Witnesses, restore to you this deed / of trust. It may be a means well manag'd to make you live / Easily together. /

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