The Country Wife

Name: The Country Wife
Author: William Wycherley

scroll plz ↓

Introduction

The Country Wife was written, according to its author’s own statement, about the year 1671 or 1672. Its production upon the stage was subsequent to that of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, to which allusion is made in the prologue, and antecedent to that of the earlier-written Plain Dealer, in the second act of which the author inserted some critical observations upon The Country Wife. The first performance of The Plain Dealer, as will afterwards appear, admits not of a later date than that of March, or the very beginning of April, 1674; it follows then that The Country Wife was brought forward some time between the early spring of 1672 and that of 1674. It was acted by the King’s Company, established during these two years at the theatre in Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and was published in the year 1675.

If we can overlook the immorality which, in this play, is more offensive and pronounced than in any of Wycherley’s other dramas, we shall find in The Country Wife a brilliantly written and skilfully constructed comedy, superior to either of the preceding dramas from the same pen, and surpassed, among comedies of the Restoration, only by its author’s own masterpiece, The Plain Dealer. The plot of The Country Wife is partly based upon two comedies by Molière—L’Ecole des Femmes and L’Ecole des Maris. From the former of these Wycherley derived his conception of the jealous man who keeps under close restraint a young and ignorant woman, with the vain hope of thereby securing her fidelity to him. Agnes’s innocent confessions to Arnolphe of her lover’s stratagems and her own esteem for him find a counterpart in the Country Wife’s frankness on a similar occasion, but beyond these points of coincidence there is little resemblance between the two plays. From L’Ecole des Maris, again, Wycherley has borrowed one or two incidents: the imprisoned girl’s device of making her would-be husband (in the English play, her actual husband) the bearer of a letter to her gallant, and the trick by which Isabella causes her tyrant, under the impression that she is another woman, to consign her with his own hands to his rival.

Steele has published, in the Tatler of April 16, 1709, a very just criticism upon this play, which, as it cannot fail to interest the reader, I venture to subjoin.

“Will’s Coffeehouse, April 14.

“This evening the Comedy, called The Country Wife, was acted in Drury Lane, for the benefit of Mrs. Bignell. The part which gives name to the Play was performed by herself. Through the whole action she made a very pretty figure, and exactly entered into the nature of the part. Her husband, in the Drama, is represented to be one of those debauchees who run through the vices of the town, and believe, when they think fit, they can marry and settle at their ease. His own knowledge of the iniquity of the age makes him choose a wife wholly ignorant of it, and place his security in her want of skill to abuse him. The Poet, on many occasions, where the propriety of the character will admit of it, insinuates that there is no defence against vice but the contempt of it: and has, in the natural ideas of an untainted innocent, shown the gradual steps to ruin and destruction which persons of condition run into, without the help of a good education to form their conduct. The torment of a jealous coxcomb, which arises from his own false maxims, and the aggravation of his pain by the very words in which he sees her innocence, makes a very pleasant and instructive satire. The character of Horner, and the design of it, is a good representation of the age in which that Comedy was written: at which time love and wenching were the business of life, and the gallant manner of pursuing women was the best recommendation at Court. To this only it is to be imputed that a Gentleman of Mr. Wycherley’s character and sense condescends to represent the insults done to the honour of the bed without just reproof; but to have drawn a man of probity with regard to such considerations had been a monster, and a Poet had at that time discovered his want of knowing the manners of the Court he lived in, by a virtuous character in his fine gentleman, as he would show his ignorance by drawing a vicious one to please the present audience.”

Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse
Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper:
Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et praemia posci.1
Horat.

Dramatis Personae

Mr. Horner.
Mr. Harcourt.
Mr. Dorilant.
Mr. Pinchwife.
Mr. Sparkish.
Sir Jasper Fidget.
A Boy.
A Quack.
Waiters, Servants, and Attendants.
Mrs. Margery Pinchwife.
Alithea, Sister of Pinchwife.
Lady Fidget.
Mrs. Dainty Fidget, Sister of Sir Jasper.
Mrs. Squeamish.
Old Lady Squeamish.
Lucy, Alithea’s Maid.

Scene—London.

Prologue

Spoken by Mr. Hart.2

Poets, like cudgelled bullies, never do
At first or second blow submit to you;
But will provoke you still, and ne’er have done,
Till you are weary first with laying on.
The late so baffled scribbler of this day,
Though he stands trembling, bids me boldly say,
What we before most plays are used to do,
For poets out of fear first draw on you;
In a fierce prologue the still pit defy,
And, ere you speak, like Castril3 give the lie.
But though our Bayes’s battles oft I’ve fought,
And with bruised knuckles their dear conquests bought;
Nay, never yet feared odds upon the stage,
In prologue dare not hector with the age;
But would take quarter from your saving hands,
Though Bayes within all yielding countermands,
Says, you confederate wits no quarter give,
Therefore his play shan’t ask your leave to live.
Well, let the vain rash fop, by huffing so,
Think to obtain the better terms of you;
But we, the actors, humbly will submit,
Now, and at any time, to a full pit;
Nay, often we anticipate your rage,
And murder poets for you on our stage:
We set no guards upon our tiring-room,
But when with dying colours there you come,
We patiently, you see, give up to you
Our poets, virgins, nay, our matrons too.

Act I

Scene I

Horner’s lodging.

	Enter Horner, and Quack* following him at a distance.*
Horner	Aside. A quack is as fit for a pimp, as a midwife for a bawd; they are still but in their way, both helpers of nature.—Aloud. Well, my dear doctor, hast thou done what I desired?
Quack	I have undone you forever with the women, and reported you throughout the whole town as bad as an eunuch, with as much trouble as if I had made you one in earnest.
Horner	But have you told all the midwives you know, the orange wenches at the playhouses, the city husbands, and old fumbling keepers of this end of the town? for they’ll be the readiest to report it.
Quack	I have told all the chambermaids, waiting-women, tire-women, and old women of my acquaintance; nay, and whispered it as a secret to ’em, and to the whisperers of Whitehall; so that you need not doubt ’twill spread, and you will be as odious to the handsome young women, as—
Horner	As the smallpox. Well—
Quack	And to the married women of this end of the town, as—
Horner	As the great one; nay, as their own husbands.
Quack	And to the city dames, as aniseed Robin, of filthy and contemptible memory; and they will frighten their children with your name, especially their females.
Horner	And cry, Horner’s coming to carry you away. I am only afraid ’twill not be believed. You told ’em it was by an English-French disaster, and an English-French chirurgeon, who has given me at once not only a cure, but an antidote for the future against that damned malady, and that worse distemper, love, and all other women’s evils?
Quack	Your late journey into France has made it the more credible, and your being here a fortnight before you appeared in public, looks as if you apprehended the shame, which I wonder you do not. Well, I have been hired by young gallants to belie ’em t’other way; but you are the first would be thought a man unfit for women.
Horner	Dear Mr. Doctor, let vain rogues be contented only to be thought abler men than they are, generally ’tis all the pleasure they have; but mine lies another way.
Quack	You take, methinks, a very preposterous way to it, and as ridiculous as if we operators in physic should put forth bills to disparage our medicaments, with hopes to gain customers.
Horner	Doctor, there are quacks in love as well as physic, who get but the fewer and worse patients for their boasting; a good name is seldom got by giving it one’s self; and women, no more than honour, are compassed by bragging. Come, come, Doctor, the wisest lawyer never discovers the merits of his cause till the trial; the wealthiest man conceals his riches, and the cunning gamester his play. Shy husbands and keepers, like old rooks, are not to be cheated but by a new unpractised trick: false friendship will pass now no more than false dice upon ’em; no, not in the city.
	Enter Boy.
Boy	There are two ladies and a gentleman coming up.
	Exit.
Horner	A pox! some unbelieving sisters of my former acquaintance, who, I am afraid, expect their sense should be satisfied of the falsity of the report. No—this formal fool and women!
	Enter Sir Jasper Fidget, Lady Fidget, and Mrs. Dainty Fidget.
Quack	His wife and sister.
Sir Jasper	My coach breaking just now before your door, sir, I look upon as an occasional reprimand to me, sir, for not kissing your hands, sir, since your coming out of France, sir; and so my disaster, sir, has been my good fortune, sir; and this is my wife and sister, sir.
Horner	What then, sir?
Sir Jasper	My lady, and sister, sir.—Wife, this is Master Horner.
Lady Fidget	Master Horner, husband!
Sir Jasper	My lady, my Lady Fidget, sir.
Horner	So, sir.
Sir Jasper	Won’t you be acquainted with her, sir?—Aside. So, the report is true, I find, by his coldness or aversion to the sex; but I’ll play the wag with him.—Aloud. Pray salute my wife, my lady, sir.
Horner	I will kiss no man’s wife, sir, for him, sir; I have taken my eternal leave, sir, of the sex already, sir.
Sir Jasper	Aside. Ha! ha! ha! I’ll plague him yet.—Aloud. Not know my wife, sir?
Horner	I do know your wife, sir; she’s a woman, sir, and consequently a monster, sir, a greater monster than a husband, sir.
Sir Jasper	A husband! how, sir?
Horner	So, sir; but I make no more cuckolds, sir. Makes horns.
Sir Jasper	Ha! ha! ha! Mercury! Mercury!
Lady Fidget	Pray, Sir Jasper, let us be gone from this rude fellow.
Mrs. Dainty	Who, by his breeding, would think he had ever been in France?
Lady Fidget	Foh! he’s but too much a French fellow, such as hate women of quality and virtue for their love to their husbands. Sir Jasper, a woman is hated by ’em as much for loving her husband as for loving their money. But pray let’s be gone.
Horner	You do well, madam; for I have nothing that you came for. I have brought over not so much as a bawdy picture, no new postures, nor the second part of the Ecole des Filles; nor—
Quack	Hold, for shame, sir! what d’ye mean? you’ll ruin yourself forever with the sex—Apart to Horner.
Sir Jasper	Ha! ha! ha! he hates women perfectly, I find.
Mrs. Dainty	What pity ’tis he should!
Lady Fidget	Ay, he’s a base fellow for’t. But affectation makes not a woman more odious to them than virtue.
Horner	Because your virtue is your greatest affectation, madam.
Lady Fidget	How, you saucy fellow! would you wrong my honour?
Horner	If I could.
Lady Fidget	How d’ye mean, sir?
Sir Jasper	Ha! ha! ha! no, he can’t wrong your ladyship’s honour, upon my honour. He, poor man—hark you in your ear—a mere eunuch. Whispers.
Lady Fidget	O filthy French beast! foh! foh! why do we stay? let’s be gone: I can’t endure the sight of him.
Sir Jasper	Stay but till the chairs come; they’ll be here presently.
Lady Fidget	No, no.
Sir Jasper	Nor can I stay longer. ’Tis, let me see, a quarter and half quarter of a minute past eleven. The council will be sat; I must away. Business must be preferred always before love and ceremony with the wise, Mr. Horner.
Horner	And the impotent, Sir Jasper.
Sir Jasper	Ay, ay, the impotent, Master Horner; hah! hah! hah!
Lady Fidget	What, leave us with a filthy man alone in his lodgings?
Sir Jasper	He’s an innocent man now, you know. Pray stay, I’ll hasten the chairs to you.—Mr. Horner, your servant; I should be glad to see you at my house. Pray come and dine with me, and play at cards with my wife after dinner; you are fit for women at that game yet, ha! ha!—Aside. ’Tis as much a husband’s prudence to provide innocent diversion for a wife as to hinder her unlawful pleasures; and he had better employ her than let her employ herself.—Aloud. Farewell.
Horner	Your servant, Sir Jasper.
	Exit Sir Jasper.
Lady Fidget	I will not stay with him, foh!—
Horner	Nay, madam, I beseech you stay, if it be but to see I can be as civil to ladies yet as they would desire.
Lady Fidget	No, no, foh! you cannot be civil to ladies.
Mrs. Dainty	You as civil as ladies would desire?
Lady Fidget	No, no, no, foh! foh! foh!
	Exeunt Lady Fidget* and Mrs. Dainty Fidget.*
Quack	Now, I think, I, or you yourself, rather, have done your business with the women.
Horner	Thou art an ass. Don’t you see already, upon the report, and my carriage, this grave man of business leaves his wife in my lodgings, invites me to his house and wife, who before would not be acquainted with me out of jealousy?
Quack	Nay, by this means you may be the more acquainted with the husbands, but the less with the wives.
Horner	Let me alone; if I can but abuse the husbands, I’ll soon disabuse the wives. Stay—I’ll reckon you up the advantages I am like to have by my stratagem. First, I shall be rid of all my old acquaintances, the most insatiable sort of duns, that invade our lodgings in a morning; and next to the pleasure of making a new mistress is that of being rid of an old one, and of all old debts. Love, when it comes to be so, is paid the most unwillingly.
Quack	Well, you may be so rid of your old acquaintances; but how will you get any new ones?
Horner	Doctor, thou wilt never make a good chemist, thou art so incredulous and impatient. Ask but all the young fellows of the town if they do not lose more time, like huntsmen, in starting the game, than in running it down. One knows not where to find ’em; who will or will not. Women of quality are so civil, you can hardly distinguish love from good breeding, and a man is often mistaken: but now I can be sure she that shows an aversion to me loves the sport, as those women that are gone, whom I warrant to be right. And then the next thing is, your women of honour, as you call ’em, are only chary of their reputations, not their persons; and ’tis scandal they would avoid, not men. Now may I have, by the reputation of an eunuch, the privileges of one, and be seen in a lady’s chamber in a morning as early as her husband; kiss virgins before their parents or lovers; and may be, in short, the passe-partout of the town. Now, doctor.
Quack	Nay, now you shall be the doctor; and your process is so new that we do not know but it may succeed.
Horner	Not so new neither; probatum est, doctor.
Quack	Well, I wish you luck, and many patients, whilst I go to mine.
	Exit.
	Enter Harcourt* and Dorilant.*
Harcourt	Come, your appearance at the play yesterday, has, I hope, hardened you for the future against the women’s contempt, and the men’s raillery; and now you’ll abroad as you were wont.
Horner	Did I not bear it bravely?
Dorilant	With a most theatrical impudence, nay, more than the orange-wenches show there, or a drunken vizard-mask, or a great-bellied actress; nay, or the most impudent of creatures, an ill poet; or what is yet more impudent, a secondhand critic.
Horner	But what say the ladies? have they no pity?
Harcourt	What ladies? The vizard-masks, you know, never pity a man when all’s gone, though in their service.
Dorilant	And for the women in the boxes, you’d never pity them when ’twas in your power.
Harcourt	They say ’tis pity but all that deal with common women should be served so.
Dorilant	Nay, I dare swear they won’t admit you to play at cards with them, go to plays with ’em, or do the little duties which other shadows of men are wont to do for ’em.
Horner	What do you call shadows of men?
Dorilant	Half-men.
Horner	What, boys?
Dorilant	Ay, your old boys, old beaux garçons, who, like superannuated stallions, are suffered to run, feed, and whinny with the mares as long as they live, though they can do nothing else.
Horner	Well, a pox on love and wenching! Women serve but to keep a man from better company. Though I can’t enjoy them, I shall you the more. Good fellowship and friendship are lasting, rational, and manly pleasures.
Harcourt	For all that, give me some of those pleasures you call effeminate too; they help to relish one another.
Horner	They disturb one another.
Harcourt	No, mistresses are like books. If you pore upon them too much, they doze you, and make you unfit for company; but if used discreetly, you are the fitter for conversation by ’em.
Dorilant	A mistress should be like a little country retreat near the town; not to dwell in constantly, but only for a night and away, to taste the town the better when a man returns.
Horner	I tell you, ’tis as hard to be a good fellow, a good friend, and a lover of women, as ’tis to be a good fellow, a good friend, and a lover of money. You cannot follow both, then choose your side. Wine gives you liberty, love takes it away.
Dorilant	Gad, he’s in the right on’t.
Horner	Wine gives you joy; love, grief and tortures, besides surgeons. Wine makes us witty; love, only sots. Wine makes us sleep; love breaks it.
Dorilant	By the world he has reason, Harcourt.
Horner	Wine makes—
Dorilant	Ay, wine makes us—makes us princes; love makes us beggars, poor rogues, egad—and wine—
Horner	So, there’s one converted.—No, no, love and wine, oil and vinegar.
Harcourt	I grant it; love will still be uppermost.
Horner	Come, for my part, I will have only those glorious manly pleasures of being very drunk and very slovenly.
	Enter Boy.
Boy	Mr. Sparkish is below, sir.
	Exit.
Harcourt	What, my dear friend! a rogue that is fond of me only, I think, for abusing him.
Dorilant	No, he can no more think the men laugh at him than that women jilt him; his opinion of himself is so good.
Horner	Well, there’s another pleasure by drinking I thought not of—I shall lose his acquaintance, because he cannot drink: and you know ’tis a very hard thing to be rid of him; for he’s one of those nauseous offerers at wit, who, like the worst fiddlers, run themselves into all companies.
Harcourt	One that, by being in the company of men of sense, would pass for one.
Horner	And may so to the shortsighted world; as a false jewel amongst true ones is not discerned at a distance. His company is as troublesome to us as a cuckold’s when you have a mind to his wife’s.
Harcourt	No, the rogue will not let us enjoy one another, but ravishes our conversation; though he signifies no more to’t than Sir Martin Mar-all’s4 gaping, and awkward thrumming upon the lute, does to his man’s voice and music.
Dorilant	And to pass for a wit in town shows himself a fool every night to us, that are guilty of the plot.
Horner	Such wits as he are, to a company of reasonable men, like rooks to the gamesters; who only fill a room at the table, but are so far from contributing to the play, that they only serve to spoil the fancy of those that do.
Dorilant	Nay, they are used like rooks too, snubbed, checked, and abused; yet the rogues will hang on.
Horner	A pox on ’em, and all that force nature, and would be still what she forbids ’em! Affectation is her greatest monster.
Harcourt	Most men are the contraries to that they would seem. Your bully, you see, is a coward with a long sword; the little humbly-fawning physician, with his ebony cane, is he that destroys men.
Dorilant	The usurer, a poor rogue, possessed of mouldy bonds and mortgages; and we they call spendthrifts, are only wealthy, who lay out his money upon daily new purchases of pleasure.
Horner	Ay, your arrantest cheat is your trustee or executor; your jealous man, the greatest cuckold; your churchman the greatest atheist; and your noisy pert rogue of a wit, the greatest fop, dullest ass, and worst company, as you shall see; for here he comes.
	Enter Sparkish.
Sparkish	How is’t, sparks? how is’t? Well, faith, Harry, I must rally thee a little, ha! ha! ha! upon the report in town of thee, ha! ha! ha! I can’t hold i’faith; shall I speak?
Horner	Yes; but you’ll be so bitter then.
Sparkish	Honest Dick and Frank here shall answer for me; I will not be extreme bitter, by the universe.
Harcourt	We will be bound in a ten thousand pound bond, he shall not be bitter at all.
Dorilant	Nor sharp, nor sweet.
Horner	What, not downright insipid?
Sparkish	Nay then, since you are so brisk, and provoke me, take what follows. You must know, I was discoursing and rallying with some ladies yesterday, and they happened to talk of the fine new signs in town—
Horner	Very fine ladies, I believe.
Sparkish	Said I, I know where the best new sign is.—Where? says one of the ladies.—In Covent-Garden, I replied.—Said another, In what street?—In Russel-street, answered I.—Lord, says another, I’m sure there was never a fine new sign there yesterday.—Yes, but there was, said I again; and it came out of France, and has been there a fortnight.
Dorilant	A pox! I can hear no more, prithee.
Horner	No, hear him out; let him tune his crowd a while.
Harcourt	The worst music, the greatest preparation.
Sparkish	Nay, faith, I’ll make you laugh.—It cannot be, says a third lady.—Yes, yes, quoth I again.—Says a fourth lady—
Horner	Look to’t, we’ll have no more ladies.
Sparkish	No—then mark, mark, now. Said I to the fourth, Did you never see Mr. Horner? he lodges in Russel-street, and he’s a sign of a man, you know, since he came out of France; ha! ha! ha!
Horner	But the devil take me if thine be the sign of a jest.
Sparkish	With that they all fell a-laughing, till they bepissed themselves. What, but it does not move you, methinks? Well, I see one had as good go to law without a witness, as break a jest without a laugher on one’s side.—Come, come, sparks, but where do we dine? I have left at Whitehall an earl, to dine with you.
Dorilant	Why, I thought thou hadst loved a man with a title, better than a suit with a French trimming to’t.
Harcourt	Go to him again.
Sparkish	No, sir, a wit to me is the greatest title in the world.
Horner	But go dine with your earl, sir; he may be exception. We are your friends, and will not take it ill to be left, I do assure you.
Harcourt	Nay, faith, he shall go to him.
Sparkish	Nay, pray, gentlemen.
Dorilant	We’ll thrust you out, if you won’t; what, disappoint anybody for us?
Sparkish	Nay, dear gentlemen, hear me.
Horner	No, no, sir, by no means; pray go, sir.
Sparkish	Why, dear rogues—
Dorilant	No, no.
	They all thrust him out of the room.
All	Ha! ha! ha!
	Reenter Sparkish.
Sparkish	But, sparks, pray hear me. What, d’ye think I’ll eat then with gay shallow fops and silent coxcombs? I think wit as necessary at dinner, as a glass of good wine; and that’s the reason I never have any stomach when I eat alone.—Come, but where do we dine?
Horner	Even where you will.
Sparkish	At Chateline’s?
Dorilant	Yes, if you will.
Sparkish	Or at the Cock?5
Dorilant	Yes, if you please.
Sparkish	Or at the Dog and Partridge?
Horner	Ay, if you have a mind to’t; for we shall dine at neither.
Sparkish	Pshaw! with your fooling we shall lose the new play; and I would no more miss seeing a new play the first day, than I would miss sitting in the wit’s row. Therefore I’ll go fetch my mistress, and away.
	Exit.
	Enter Pinchwife.
Horner	Who have we here? Pinchwife?
Pinchwife	Gentlemen, your humble servant.
Horner	Well, Jack, by thy long absence from the town, the grumness of thy countenance, and the slovenliness of thy habit, I should give thee joy, should I not, of marriage?
Pinchwife	Aside. Death! does he know I’m married too? I thought to have concealed it from him at least.—Aloud. My long stay in the country will excuse my dress; and I have a suit of law that brings me up to town, that puts me out of humour. Besides, I must give Sparkish tomorrow five thousand pounds to lie with my sister.
Horner	Nay, you country gentlemen, rather than not purchase, will buy anything; and he is a cracked title, if we may quibble. Well, but am I to give thee joy? I heard thou wert married.
Pinchwife	What then?
Horner	Why, the next thing that is to be heard, is, thou’rt a cuckold.
Pinchwife	Insupportable name! Aside.
Horner	But I did not expect marriage from such a whoremaster as you; one that knew the town so much, and women so well.
Pinchwife	Why, I have married no London wife.
Horner	Pshaw! that’s all one. That grave circumspection in marrying a country wife, is like refusing a deceitful pampered Smithfield jade, to go and be cheated by a friend in the country.
Pinchwife	Aside. A pox on him and his simile!—Aloud. At least we are a little surer of the breed there, know what her keeping has been, whether foiled or unsound.
Horner	Come, come, I have known a clap gotten in Wales; and there are cousins, justices’ clerks, and chaplains in the country, I won’t say coachmen. But she’s handsome and young?
Pinchwife	Aside. I’ll answer as I should do.—Aloud. No, no; she has no beauty but her youth, no attraction but her modesty: wholesome, homely, and huswifely; that’s all.
Dorilant	He talks as like a grazier as he looks.
Pinchwife	She’s too awkward, ill-favoured, and silly to bring to town.
Harcourt	Then methinks you should bring her to be taught breeding.
Pinchwife	To be taught! no, sir, I thank you. Good wives and private soldiers should be ignorant—I’ll keep her from your instructions, I warrant you.
Harcourt	The rogue is as jealous as if his wife were not ignorant. Aside.
Horner	Why, if she be ill-favoured, there will be less danger here for you than by leaving her in the country. We have such variety of dainties that we are seldom hungry.
Dorilant	But they have always coarse, constant, swingeing stomachs in the country.
Harcourt	Foul feeders indeed!
Dorilant	And your hospitality is great there.
Harcourt	Open house; every man’s welcome.
Pinchwife	So, so, gentlemen.
Horner	But prithee, why shouldst thou marry her? If she be ugly, ill-bred, and silly, she must be rich then.
Pinchwife	As rich as if she brought me twenty thousand pound out of this town; for she’ll be as sure not to spend her moderate portion, as a London baggage would be to spend hers, let it be what it would: so ’tis all one. Then, because she’s ugly, she’s the likelier to be my own; and being ill-bred, she’ll hate conversation; and since silly and innocent, will not know the difference betwixt a man of one-and-twenty and one of forty.
Horner	Nine—to my knowledge. But if she be silly, she’ll expect as much from a man of forty-nine, as from him of one-and-twenty. But methinks wit is more necessary than beauty; and I think no young woman ugly that has it, and no handsome woman agreeable without it.
Pinchwife	’Tis my maxim, he’s a fool that marries; but he’s a greater that does not marry a fool. What is wit in a wife good for, but to make a man a cuckold?
Horner	Yes, to keep it from his knowledge.
Pinchwife	A fool cannot contrive to make her husband a cuckold.
Horner	No; but she’ll club with a man that can: and what is worse, if she cannot make her husband a cuckold, she’ll make him jealous, and pass for one: and then ’tis all one.
Pinchwife	Well, well, I’ll take care for one. My wife shall make me no cuckold, though she had your help, Mr. Horner. I understand the town, sir.
Dorilant	His help! Aside.
Harcourt	He’s come newly to town, it seems, and has not heard how things are with him. Aside.
Horner	But tell me, has marriage cured thee of whoring, which it seldom does?
Harcourt	’Tis more than age can do.
Horner	No, the word is, I’ll marry and live honest: but a marriage vow is like a penitent gamester’s oath, and entering into bonds and penalties to stint himself to such a particular small sum at play for the future, which makes him but the more eager; and not being able to hold out, loses his money again, and his forfeit to boot.
Dorilant	Ay, ay, a gamester will be a gamester whilst his money lasts, and a whoremaster whilst his vigour.
Harcourt	Nay, I have known ’em, when they are broke, and can lose no more, keep a fumbling with the box in their hands to fool with only, and hinder other gamesters.
Dorilant	That had wherewithal to make lusty stakes.
Pinchwife	Well, gentlemen, you may laugh at me; but you shall never lie with my wife: I know the town.
Horner	But prithee, was not the way you were in better? is not keeping better than marriage?
Pinchwife	A pox on’t! the jades would jilt me, I could never keep a whore to myself.
Horner	So, then you only married to keep a whore to yourself. Well, but let me tell you, women, as you say, are like soldiers, made constant and loyal by good pay, rather than by oaths and covenants. Therefore I’d advise my friends to keep rather than marry, since too I find, by your example, it does not serve one’s turn; for I saw you yesterday in the eighteenpenny place with a pretty country-wench.
Pinchwife	How the devil! did he see my wife then? I sat there that she might not be seen. But she shall never go to a play again. Aside.
Horner	What! dost thou blush, at nine-and-forty, for having been seen with a wench?
Dorilant	No, faith, I warrant ’twas his wife, which he seated there out of sight; for he’s a cunning rogue, and understands the town.
Harcourt	He blushes. Then ’twas his wife; for men are now more ashamed to be seen with them in public than with a wench.
Pinchwife	Hell and damnation! I’m undone, since Horner has seen her, and they know ’twas she. Aside.
Horner	But prithee, was it thy wife? She was exceeding pretty: I was in love with her at that distance.
Pinchwife	You are like never to be nearer to her. Your servant, gentlemen. Offers to go.
Horner	Nay, prithee stay.
Pinchwife	I cannot; I will not.
Horner	Come, you shall dine with us.
Pinchwife	I have dined already.
Horner	Come, I know thou hast not: I’ll treat thee, dear rogue; thou sha’t spend none of thy Hampshire money today.
Pinchwife	Treat me! So, he uses me already like his cuckold. Aside.
Horner	Nay, you shall not go.
Pinchwife	I must; I have business at home.
	Exit.
Harcourt	To beat his wife. He’s as jealous of her, as a Cheapside husband of a Covent-garden wife.
Horner	Why, ’tis as hard to find an old whoremaster without jealousy and the gout, as a young one without fear, or the pox:— As gout in age from pox in youth proceeds, So wenching past, then jealousy succeeds; The worst disease that love and wenching breeds.
	Exeunt.

Act II

Scene I

A room in Pinchwife’s house.

	Mrs. Margery Pinchwife and Alithea. Pinchwife peeping behind at the door.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray, sister, where are the best fields and woods to walk in, in London?
Alithea	Aside. A pretty question!—Aloud. Why, sister, Mulberry-garden and St. James’s park; and, for close walks, the New Exchange.6
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray, sister, tell me why my husband looks so grum here in town, and keeps me up so close, and will not let me go a-walking, nor let me wear my best gown yesterday.
Alithea	O, he’s jealous, sister.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Jealous! what’s that?
Alithea	He’s afraid you should love another man.
Mrs. Pinchwife	How should he be afraid of my loving another man, when he will not let me see any but himself?
Alithea	Did he not carry you yesterday to a play?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Ay; but we sat amongst ugly people. He would not let me come near the gentry, who sat under us, so that I could not see ’em. He told me, none but naughty women sat there, whom they toused and moused. But I would have ventured, for all that.
Alithea	But how did you like the play?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Indeed I was weary of the play; but I liked hugeously the actors. They are the goodliest, properest men, sister!
Alithea	O, but you must not like the actors, sister.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Ay, how should I help it, sister? Pray, sister, when my husband comes in, will you ask leave for me to go a-walking?
Alithea	A-walking! ha! ha! Lord, a country-gentlewoman’s pleasure is the drudgery of a footpost; and she requires as much airing as her husband’s horses.—Aside. But here comes your husband: I’ll ask, though I’m sure he’ll not grant it.
Mrs. Pinchwife	He says he won’t let me go abroad for fear of catching the pox.
Alithea	Fy! the smallpox you should say.
	Enter Pinchwife.
Mrs. Pinchwife	O my dear, dear bud, welcome home! Why dost thou look so fropish? who has nangered thee?
Pinchwife	You’re a fool. Mrs. Pinchwife goes aside, and cries.
Alithea	Faith, so she is, for crying for no fault, poor tender creature!
Pinchwife	What, you would have her as impudent as yourself, as arrant a jilflirt, a gadder, a magpie; and to say all, a mere notorious town-woman?
Alithea	Brother, you are my only censurer; and the honour of your family will sooner suffer in your wife there than in me, though I take the innocent liberty of the town.
Pinchwife	Hark you, mistress, do not talk so before my wife.—The innocent liberty of the town!
Alithea	Why, pray, who boasts of any intrigue with me? what lampoon has made my name notorious? what ill women frequent my lodgings? I keep no company with any women of scandalous reputations.
Pinchwife	No, you keep the men of scandalous reputations company.
Alithea	Where? would you not have me civil? answer ’em in a box at the plays, in the drawing-room at Whitehall, in St. James’-park, Mulberry-garden, or—
Pinchwife	Hold, hold! Do not teach my wife where the men are to be found: I believe she’s the worse for your town-documents already. I bid you keep her in ignorance, as I do.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Indeed, be not angry with her, bud, she will tell me nothing of the town, though I ask her a thousand times a day.
Pinchwife	Then you are very inquisitive to know, I find?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Not I indeed, dear; I hate London. Our place-house in the country is worth a thousand of’t: would I were there again!
Pinchwife	So you shall, I warrant. But were you not talking of plays and players when I came in?—To Alithea. You are her encourager in such discourses.
Mrs. Pinchwife	No, indeed, dear; she chid me just now for liking the playermen.
Pinchwife	Aside. Nay, if she be so innocent as to own to me her liking them, there is no hurt in’t.—Aloud. Come, my poor rogue, but thou likest none better than me?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Yes, indeed, but I do. The playermen are finer folks.
Pinchwife	But you love none better than me?
Mrs. Pinchwife	You are my own dear bud, and I know you. I hate a stranger.
Pinchwife	Ay, my dear, you must love me only; and not be like the naughty town-women, who only hate their husbands, and love every man else; love plays, visits, fine coaches, fine clothes, fiddles, balls, treats, and so lead a wicked town-life.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, if to enjoy all these things be a town-life, London is not so bad a place, dear.
Pinchwife	How! if you love me, you must hate London.
Alithea	The fool has forbid me discovering to her the pleasures of the town, and he is now setting her agog upon them himself. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	But, husband, do the town-women love the playermen too?
Pinchwife	Yes, I warrant you.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Ay, I warrant you.
Pinchwife	Why, you do not, I hope?
Mrs. Pinchwife	No, no, bud. But why have we no playermen in the country?
Pinchwife	Ha!—Mrs. Minx, ask me no more to go to a play.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, why, love? I did not care for going: but when you forbid me, you make me, as ’twere, desire it.
Alithea	So ’twill be in other things, I warrant. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray let me go to a play, dear.
Pinchwife	Hold your peace, I wo’ not.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Why, love?
Pinchwife	Why, I’ll tell you.
Alithea	Nay, if he tell her, she’ll give him more cause to forbid her that place. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray why, dear?
Pinchwife	First, you like the actors; and the gallants may like you.
Mrs. Pinchwife	What, a homely country girl! No, bud, nobody will like me.
Pinchwife	I tell you yes, they may.
Mrs. Pinchwife	No, no, you jest—I won’t believe you: I will go.
Pinchwife	I tell you then, that one of the lewdest fellows in town, who saw you there, told me he was in love with you.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Indeed! who, who, pray who was’t?
Pinchwife	I’ve gone too far, and slipped before I was aware; how overjoyed she is! Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Was it any Hampshire gallant, any of our neighbours? I promise you, I am beholden to him.
Pinchwife	I promise you, you lie; for he would but ruin you, as he has done hundreds. He has no other love for women but that; such as he look upon women, like basilisks, but to destroy ’em.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Ay, but if he loves me, why should he ruin me? answer me to that. Methinks he should not, I would do him no harm.
Alithea	Ha! ha! ha!
Pinchwife	’Tis very well; but I’ll keep him from doing you any harm, or me either. But here comes company; get you in, get you in.
Mrs. Pinchwife	But, pray, husband, is he a pretty gentleman that loves me?
Pinchwife	In, baggage, in. Thrusts her in, and shuts the door.
	Enter Sparkish* and Harcourt.*
	What, all the lewd libertines of the town brought to my lodging by this easy coxcomb! ’sdeath, I’ll not suffer it.
Sparkish	Here, Harcourt, do you approve my choice?—To Alithea. Dear little rogue, I told you I’d bring you acquainted with all my friends, the wits and—Harcourt salutes her.
Pinchwife	Ay, they shall know her, as well as you yourself will, I warrant you.
Sparkish	This is one of those, my pretty rogue, that are to dance at your wedding tomorrow; and him you must bid welcome ever, to what you and I have.
Pinchwife	Monstrous! Aside.
Sparkish	Harcourt, how dost thou like her, faith? Nay, dear, do not look down; I should hate to have a wife of mine out of countenance at anything.
Pinchwife	Wonderful! Aside.
Sparkish	Tell me, I say, Harcourt, how dost thou like her? Thou hast stared upon her enough, to resolve me.
Harcourt	So infinitely well, that I could wish I had a mistress too, that might differ from her in nothing but her love and engagement to you.
Alithea	Sir, Master Sparkish has often told me that his acquaintance were all wits and raillieurs, and now I find it.
Sparkish	No, by the universe, madam, he does not rally now; you may believe him. I do assure you, he is the honestest, worthiest, truehearted gentlemen—a man of such perfect honour, he would say nothing to a lady he does not mean.
Pinchwife	Praising another man to his mistress! Aside.
Harcourt	Sir, you are so beyond expectation obliging, that—
Sparkish	Nay, egad, I am sure you do admire her extremely; I see’t in your eyes.—He does admire you, madam.—By the world, don’t you?
Harcourt	Yes, above the world, or the most glorious part of it, her whole sex: and till now I never thought I should have envied you, or any man about to marry, but you have the best excuse for marriage I ever knew.
Alithea	Nay, now, sir, I’m satisfied you are of the society of the wits and raillieurs, since you cannot spare your friend, even when he is but too civil to you; but the surest sign is, since you are an enemy to marriage—for that I hear you hate as much as business or bad wine.
Harcourt	Truly, madam, I was never an enemy to marriage till now, because marriage was never an enemy to me before.
Alithea	But why, sir, is marriage an enemy to you now? because it robs you of your friend here? for you look upon a friend married, as one gone into a monastery, that is, dead to the world.
Harcourt	’Tis indeed, because you marry him; I see, madam, you can guess my meaning. I do confess heartily and openly, I wish it were in my power to break the match; by Heavens I would.
Sparkish	Poor Frank!
Alithea	Would you be so unkind to me?
Harcourt	No, no, ’tis not because I would be unkind to you.
Sparkish	Poor Frank! no gad, ’tis only his kindness to me.
Pinchwife	Great kindness to you indeed! Insensible fop, let a man make love to his wife to his face! Aside.
Sparkish	Come, dear Frank, for all my wife there, that shall be, thou shalt enjoy me sometimes, dear rogue. By my honour, we men of wit condole for our deceased brother in marriage, as much as for one dead in earnest: I think that was prettily said of me, ha, Harcourt?—But come, Frank, be not melancholy for me.
Harcourt	No, I assure you, I am not melancholy for you.
Sparkish	Prithee, Frank, dost think my wife that shall be there, a fine person?
Harcourt	I could gaze upon her till I became as blind as you are.
Sparkish	How as I am? how?
Harcourt	Because you are a lover, and true lovers are blind, stock blind.
Sparkish	True, true; but by the world she has wit too, as well as beauty: go, go with her into a corner, and try if she has wit; talk to her anything, she’s bashful before me.
Harcourt	Indeed if a woman wants wit in a corner, she has it nowhere.
Alithea	Sir, you dispose of me a little before your time—Aside to Sparkish.
Sparkish	Nay, nay, madam, let me have an earnest of your obedience, or—go, go, madam—Harcourt courts Alithea aside.
Pinchwife	How, sir! if you are not concerned for the honour of a wife, I am for that of a sister; he shall not debauch her. Be a pander to your own wife! bring men to her! let ’em make love before your face! thrust ’em into a corner together, then leave ’em in private! is this your town wit and conduct?
Sparkish	Ha! ha! ha! a silly wise rogue would make one laugh more than a stark fool, ha! ha! I shall burst. Nay, you shall not disturb ’em; I’ll vex thee, by the world. Struggles with Pinchwife* to keep him from Harcourt and Alithea.*
Alithea	The writings are drawn, sir, settlements made; ’tis too late, sir, and past all revocation.
Harcourt	Then so is my death.
Alithea	I would not be unjust to him.
Harcourt	Then why to me so?
Alithea	I have no obligation to you.
Harcourt	My love.
Alithea	I had his before.
Harcourt	You never had it; he wants, you see, jealousy, the only infallible sign of it.
Alithea	Love proceeds from esteem; he cannot distrust my virtue: besides, he loves me, or he would not marry me.
Harcourt	Marrying you is no more sign of his love than bribing your woman, that he may marry you, is a sign of his generosity. Marriage is rather a sign of interest than love; and he that marries a fortune covets a mistress, not loves her. But if you take marriage for a sign of love, take it from me immediately.
Alithea	No, now you have put a scruple in my head; but in short, sir, to end our dispute, I must marry him, my reputation would suffer in the world else.
Harcourt	No; if you do marry him, with your pardon, madam, your reputation suffers in the world, and you would be thought in necessity for a cloak.
Alithea	Nay, now you are rude, sir.—Mr. Sparkish, pray come hither, your friend here is very troublesome, and very loving.
Harcourt	Hold! hold!—Aside to Alithea.
Pinchwife	D’ye hear that?
Sparkish	Why, d’ye think I’ll seem to be jealous, like a country bumpkin?
Pinchwife	No, rather be a cuckold, like a credulous cit.
Harcourt	Madam, you would not have been so little generous as to have told him.
Alithea	Yes, since you could be so little generous as to wrong him.
Harcourt	Wrong him! no man can do’t, he’s beneath an injury: a bubble, a coward, a senseless idiot, a wretch so contemptible to all the world but you, that—
Alithea	Hold, do not rail at him, for since he is like to be my husband, I am resolved to like him: nay, I think I am obliged to tell him you are not his friend.—Master Sparkish, Master Sparkish!
Sparkish	What, what?—To Harcourt. Now, dear rogue, has not she wit?
Harcourt	Not so much as I thought, and hoped she had. Speaks surlily.
Alithea	Mr. Sparkish, do you bring people to rail at you?
Harcourt	Madam—
Sparkish	How! no; but if he does rail at me, ’tis but in jest, I warrant: what we wits do for one another, and never take any notice of it.
Alithea	He spoke so scurrilously of you, I had no patience to hear him; besides, he has been making love to me.
Harcourt	True, damned telltale woman! Aside.
Sparkish	Pshaw! to show his parts—we wits rail and make love often, but to show our parts: as we have no affections, so we have no malice, we—
Alithea	He said you were a wretch below an injury—
Sparkish	Pshaw!
Harcourt	Damned, senseless, impudent, virtuous jade! Well, since she won’t let me have her, she’ll do as good, she’ll make me hate her. Aside.
Alithea	A common bubble—
Sparkish	Pshaw!
Alithea	A coward—
Sparkish	Pshaw, pshaw!
Alithea	A senseless, drivelling idiot—
Sparkish	How! did he disparage my parts? Nay, then, my honour’s concerned, I can’t put up that, sir, by the world—brother, help me to kill him—Aside. I may draw now, since we have the odds of him:—’tis a good occasion, too, before my mistress—Offers to draw.
Alithea	Hold, hold!
Sparkish	What, what?
Alithea	Aside. I must not let ’em kill the gentleman neither, for his kindness to me: I am so far from hating him, that I wish my gallant had his person and understanding. Nay, if my honour—
Sparkish	I’ll be thy death.
Alithea	Hold, hold! Indeed, to tell the truth, the gentleman said after all, that what he spoke was but out of friendship to you.
Sparkish	How! say, I am, I am a fool, that is, no wit, out of friendship to me?
Alithea	Yes, to try whether I was concerned enough for you; and made love to me only to be satisfied of my virtue, for your sake.
Harcourt	Kind, however. Aside.
Sparkish	Nay, if it were so, my dear rogue, I ask thee pardon; but why would not you tell me so, faith?
Harcourt	Because I did not think on’t, faith.
Sparkish	Come, Horner does not come; Harcourt, let’s be gone to the new play.—Come, madam.
Alithea	I will not go, if you intend to leave me alone in the box, and run into the pit, as you use to do.
Sparkish	Pshaw! I’ll leave Harcourt with you in the box to entertain you, and that’s as good; if I sat in the box, I should be thought no judge but of trimmings.—Come away, Harcourt, lead her down.
	Exeunt Sparkish, Harcourt, and Alithea.
Pinchwife	Well, go thy ways, for the flower of the true town fops, such as spend their estates before they come to ’em, and are cuckolds before they’re married. But let me go look to my own freehold.—How!
	Enter Lady Fidget, Mrs. Dainty Fidget, and Mrs. Squeamish.
Lady Fidget	Your servant, sir: where is your lady? We are come to wait upon her to the new play.
Pinchwife	New play!
Lady Fidget	And my husband will wait upon you presently.
Pinchwife	Aside. Damn your civility.—Aloud. Madam, by no means; I will not see Sir Jasper here, till I have waited upon him at home; nor shall my wife see you till she has waited upon your ladyship at your lodgings.
Lady Fidget	Now we are here, sir?
Pinchwife	No, Madam.
Mrs. Dainty	Pray, let us see her.
Mrs. Squeamish	We will not stir till we see her.
Pinchwife	Aside. A pox on you all!—Goes to the door, and returns. She has locked the door, and is gone abroad.
Lady Fidget	No, you have locked the door, and she’s within.
Mrs. Dainty	They told us below she was here.
Pinchwife	Aside. Will nothing do?—Aloud. Well, it must out then. To tell you the truth, ladies, which I was afraid to let you know before, lest it might endanger your lives, my wife has just now the smallpox come out upon her; do not be frightened; but pray be gone, ladies; you shall not stay here in danger of your lives; pray get you gone, ladies.
Lady Fidget	No, no, we have all had ’em.
Mrs. Squeamish	Alack, alack!
Mrs. Dainty	Come, come, we must see how it goes with her; I understand the disease.
Lady Fidget	Come!
Pinchwife	Aside. Well, there is no being too hard for women at their own weapon, lying, therefore I’ll quit the field.
	Exit.
Mrs. Squeamish	Here’s an example of jealousy!
Lady Fidget	Indeed, as the world goes, I wonder there are no more jealous, since wives are so neglected.
Mrs. Dainty	Pshaw! as the world goes, to what end should they be jealous?
Lady Fidget	Foh! ’tis a nasty world.
Mrs. Squeamish	That men of parts, great acquaintance, and quality, should take up with and spend themselves and fortunes in keeping little playhouse creatures, foh!
Lady Fidget	Nay, that women of understanding, great acquaintance, and good quality, should fall a-keeping too of little creatures, foh!
Mrs. Squeamish	Why, ’tis the men of quality’s fault; they never visit women of honour and reputation as they used to do; and have not so much as common civility for ladies of our rank, but use us with the same indifferency and ill-breeding as if we were all married to ’em.
Lady Fidget	She says true; ’tis an arrant shame women of quality should be so slighted; methinks birth—birth should go for something; I have known men admired, courted, and followed for their titles only.
Mrs. Squeamish	Ay, one would think men of honour should not love, no more than marry, out of their own rank.
Mrs. Dainty	Fy, fy, upon ’em! they are come to think cross breeding for themselves best, as well as for their dogs and horses.
Lady Fidget	They are dogs and horses for’t.
Mrs. Squeamish	One would think, if not for love, for vanity a little.
Mrs. Dainty	Nay, they do satisfy their vanity upon us sometimes; and are kind to us in their report, tell all the world they lie with us.
Lady Fidget	Damned rascals, that we should be only wronged by ’em! To report a man has had a person, when he has not had a person, is the greatest wrong in the whole world that can be done to a person.
Mrs. Squeamish	Well, ’tis an arrant shame noble persons should be so wronged and neglected.
Lady Fidget	But still ’tis an arranter shame for a noble person to neglect her own honour, and defame her own noble person with little inconsiderable fellows, foh!
Mrs. Dainty	I suppose the crime against our honour is the same with a man of quality as with another.
Lady Fidget	How! no sure, the man of quality is likest one’s husband, and therefore the fault should be the less.
Mrs. Dainty	But then the pleasure should be the less.
Lady Fidget	Fy, fy, fy, for shame, sister! whither shall we ramble? Be continent in your discourse, or I shall hate you.
Mrs. Dainty	Besides, an intrigue is so much the more notorious for the man’s quality.
Mrs. Squeamish	’Tis true that nobody takes notice of a private man, and therefore with him ’tis more secret; and the crime’s the less when ’tis not known.
Lady Fidget	You say true; i’faith, I think you are in the right on’t: ’tis not an injury to a husband, till it be an injury to our honours; so that a woman of honour loses no honour with a private person; and to say truth—
Mrs. Dainty	So, the little fellow is grown a private person—with her—Apart to Mrs. Squeamish.
Lady Fidget	But still my dear, dear honour—
	Enter Sir Jasper Fidget, Horner, and Dorilant.
Sir Jasper	Ay, my dear, dear of honour, thou hast still so much honour in thy mouth—
Horner	That she has none elsewhere. Aside.
Lady Fidget	Oh, what d’ye mean to bring in these upon us?
Mrs. Dainty	Foh! these are as bad as wits.
Mrs. Squeamish	Foh!
Lady Fidget	Let us leave the room.
Sir Jasper	Stay, stay; faith, to tell you the naked truth—
Lady Fidget	Fy, Sir Jasper! do not use that word naked.
Sir Jasper	Well, well, in short I have business at Whitehall, and cannot go to the play with you, therefore would have you go—
Lady Fidget	With those two to a play?
Sir Jasper	No, not with t’other, but with Mr. Horner; there can be no more scandal to go with him than with Mr. Tattle, or Master Limberham.
Lady Fidget	With that nasty fellow! no—no.
Sir Jasper	Nay, prithee, dear, hear me. Whispers to Lady Fidget.
Horner	Ladies—Horner and Dorilant draw near Mrs. Squeamish and Mrs. Dainty Fidget.
Mrs. Dainty	Stand off.
Mrs. Squeamish	Do not approach us.
Mrs. Dainty	You herd with the wits, you are obscenity all over.
Mrs. Squeamish	And I would as soon look upon a picture of Adam and Eve, without fig-leaves, as any of you, if I could help it; therefore keep off, and do not make us sick.
Dorilant	What a devil are these?
Horner	Why, these are pretenders to honour, as critics to wit, only by censuring others; and as every raw, peevish, out-of-humoured, affected, dull, tea-drinking, arithmetical fop, sets up for a wit by railing at men of sense, so these for honour, by railing at the court, and ladies of as great honour as quality.
Sir Jasper	Come, Mr. Horner, I must desire you to go with these ladies to the play, sir.
Horner	I, sir?
Sir Jasper	Ay, ay, come, sir.
Horner	I must beg your pardon, sir, and theirs; I will not be seen in women’s company in public again for the world.
Sir Jasper	Ha, ha, strange aversion!
Mrs. Squeamish	No, he’s for women’s company in private.
Sir Jasper	He—poor man—he—ha! ha! ha!
Mrs. Dainty	’Tis a greater shame amongst lewd fellows to be seen in virtuous women’s company, than for the women to be seen with them.
Horner	Indeed, madam, the time was I only hated virtuous women, but now I hate the other too; I beg your pardon, ladies.
Lady Fidget	You are very obliging, sir, because we would not be troubled with you.
Sir Jasper	In sober sadness, he shall go.
Dorilant	Nay, if he wo’ not, I am ready to wait upon the ladies, and I think I am the fitter man.
Sir Jasper	You sir! no, I thank you for that. Master Horner is a privileged man amongst the virtuous ladies, ’twill be a great while before you are so; he! he! he! he’s my wife’s gallant; he! he! he! No, pray withdraw, sir, for as I take it, the virtuous ladies have no business with you.
Dorilant	And I am sure he can have none with them. ’Tis strange a man can’t come amongst virtuous women now, but upon the same terms as men are admitted into the Great Turk’s seraglio. But heavens keep me from being an ombre player with ’em!—But where is Pinchwife?
	Exit.
Sir Jasper	Come, come, man; what, avoid the sweet society of womankind? that sweet, soft, gentle, tame, noble creature, woman, made for man’s companion—
Horner	So is that soft, gentle, tame, and more noble creature a spaniel, and has all their tricks; can fawn, lie down, suffer beating, and fawn the more; barks at your friends when they come to see you, makes your bed hard, gives you fleas, and the mange sometimes. And all the difference is, the spaniel’s the more faithful animal, and fawns but upon one master.
Sir Jasper	He! he! he!
Mrs. Squeamish	O the rude beast!
Mrs. Dainty	Insolent brute!
Lady Fidget	Brute! stinking, mortified, rotten French wether, to dare—
Sir Jasper	Hold, an’t please your ladyship.—For shame, Master Horner! your mother was a woman—Aside. Now shall I never reconcile ’em.—Aside to Lady Fidget. Hark you, madam, take my advice in your anger. You know you often want one to make up your drolling pack of ombre players, and you may cheat him easily; for he’s an ill gamester, and consequently loves play. Besides, you know you have but two old civil gentlemen (with stinking breaths too) to wait upon you abroad; take in the third into your service. The other are but crazy; and a lady should have a supernumerary gentleman-usher as a supernumerary coach-horse, lest sometimes you should be forced to stay at home.
Lady Fidget	But are you sure he loves play, and has money?
Sir Jasper	He loves play as much as you, and has money as much as I.
Lady Fidget	Then I am contented to make him pay for his scurrility. Money makes up in a measure all other wants in men.—Those whom we cannot make hold for gallants, we make fine. Aside.
Sir Jasper	Aside. So, so; now to mollify, wheedle him.—Aside to Horner. Master Horner, will you never keep civil company? methinks ’tis time now, since you are only fit for them. Come, come, man, you must e’en fall to visiting our wives, eating at our tables, drinking tea with our virtuous relations after dinner, dealing cards to ’em, reading plays and gazettes to ’em, picking fleas out of their smocks for ’em, collecting receipts, new songs, women, pages, and footmen for ’em.
Horner	I hope they’ll afford me better employment, sir.
Sir Jasper	He! he! he! ’tis fit you know your work before you come into your place. And since you are unprovided of a lady to flatter, and a good house to eat at, pray frequent mine, and call my wife mistress, and she shall call you gallant, according to the custom.
Horner	Who, I?
Sir Jasper	Faith, thou sha’t for my sake; come, for my sake only.
Horner	For your sake—
Sir Jasper	Come, come, here’s a gamester for you; let him be a little familiar sometimes; nay, what if a little rude? Gamesters may be rude with ladies, you know.
Lady Fidget	Yes; losing gamesters have a privilege with women.
Horner	I always thought the contrary, that the winning gamester had most privilege with women; for when you have lost your money to a man, you’ll lose anything you have, all you have, they say, and he may use you as he pleases.
Sir Jasper	He! he! he! well, win or lose, you shall have your liberty with her.
Lady Fidget	As he behaves himself; and for your sake I’ll give him admittance and freedom.
Horner	All sorts of freedom, madam?
Sir Jasper	Ay, ay, ay, all sorts of freedom thou canst take. And so go to her, begin thy new employment; wheedle her, jest with her, and be better acquainted one with another.
Horner	Aside. I think I know her already; therefore may venture with her my secret for hers. Horner and Lady Fidget whisper.
Sir Jasper	Sister cuz, I have provided an innocent playfellow for you there.
Mrs. Dainty	Who, he?
Mrs. Squeamish	There’s a playfellow, indeed!
Sir Jasper	Yes sure.—What, he is good enough to play at cards, blindman’s-buff, or the fool with, sometimes!
Mrs. Squeamish	Foh! we’ll have no such playfellows.
Mrs. Dainty	No, sir; you shan’t choose playfellows for us, we thank you.
Sir Jasper	Nay, pray hear me. Whispering to them.
Lady Fidget	But, poor gentleman, could you be so generous, so truly a man of honour, as for the sakes of us women of honour, to cause yourself to be reported no man? No man! and to suffer yourself the greatest shame that could fall upon a man, that none might fall upon us women by your conversation? but, indeed, sir, as perfectly, perfectly the same man as before your going into France, sir? as perfectly, perfectly, sir?
Horner	As perfectly, perfectly, madam. Nay, I scorn you should take my word; I desire to be tried only, madam.
Lady Fidget	Well, that’s spoken again like a man of honour: all men of honour desire to come to the test. But, indeed, generally you men report such things of yourselves, one does not know how or whom to believe; and it is come to that pass, we dare not take your words no more than your tailor’s, without some staid servant of yours be bound with you. But I have so strong a faith in your honour, dear, dear, noble sir, that I’d forfeit mine for yours, at any time, dear sir.
Horner	No, madam, you should not need to forfeit it for me; I have given you security already to save you harmless, my late reputation being so well known in the world, madam.
Lady Fidget	But if upon any future falling-out, or upon a suspicion of my taking the trust out of your hands, to employ some other, you yourself should betray your trust, dear sir? I mean, if you’ll give me leave to speak obscenely, you might tell, dear sir.
Horner	If I did, nobody would believe me. The reputation of impotency is as hardly recovered again in the world as that of cowardice, dear madam.
Lady Fidget	Nay, then, as one may say, you may do your worst, dear, dear sir.
Sir Jasper	Come, is your ladyship reconciled to him yet? have you agreed on matters? for I must be gone to Whitehall.
Lady Fidget	Why, indeed, Sir Jasper, Master Horner is a thousand, thousand times a better man than I thought him. Cousin Squeamish, sister Dainty, I can name him now. Truly, not long ago, you know, I thought his very name obscenity; and I would as soon have lain with him as have named him.
Sir Jasper	Very likely, poor madam.
Mrs. Dainty	I believe it.
Mrs. Squeamish	No doubt on’t.
Sir Jasper	Well, well—that your ladyship is as virtuous as any she, I know, and him all the town knows—he! he! he! therefore now you like him, get you gone to your business together, go, go to your business, I say, pleasure, whilst I go to my pleasure, business.
Lady Fidget	Come, then, dear gallant.
Horner	Come away, my dearest mistress.
Sir Jasper	So, so; why, ’tis as I’d have it.
	Exit.
Horner	And as I’d have it.
Lady Fidget	Who for his business from his wife will run, Takes the best care to have her business done.
	Exeunt.

Act III

Scene I

A room in Pinchwife’s house.

	Enter Alithea* and Mrs. Pinchwife.*
Alithea	Sister, what ails you? you are grown melancholy.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Would it not make anyone melancholy to see you go every day fluttering about abroad, whilst I must stay at home like a poor lonely sullen bird in a cage?
Alithea	Ay, sister; but you came young, and just from the nest to your cage: so that I thought you liked it, and could be as cheerful in’t as others that took their flight themselves early, and are hopping abroad in the open air.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, I confess I was quiet enough till my husband told me what pure lives the London ladies live abroad, with their dancing, meetings, and junketings, and dressed every day in their best gowns; and I warrant you, play at ninepins every day of the week, so they do.
	Enter Pinchwife.
Pinchwife	Come, what’s here to do? you are putting the town-pleasures in her head, and setting her a-longing.
Alithea	Yes, after ninepins. You suffer none to give her those longings you mean but yourself.
Pinchwife	I tell her of the vanities of the town like a confessor.
Alithea	A confessor! just such a confessor as he that, by forbidding a silly ostler to grease the horse’s teeth, taught him to do’t.
Pinchwife	Come, Mrs. Flippant, good precepts are lost when bad examples are still before us: the liberty you take abroad makes her hanker after it, and out of humour at home. Poor wretch! she desired not to come to London; I would bring her.
Alithea	Very well.
Pinchwife	She has been this week in town, and never desired till this afternoon to go abroad.
Alithea	Was she not at a play yesterday?
Pinchwife	Yes; but she ne’er asked me; I was myself the cause of her going.
Alithea	Then if she ask you again, you are the cause of her asking, and not my example.
Pinchwife	Well, tomorrow night I shall be rid of you; and the next day, before ’tis light, she and I’ll be rid of the town, and my dreadful apprehensions.—Come, be not melancholy; for thou sha’t go into the country after tomorrow, dearest.
Alithea	Great comfort!
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pish! what d’ye tell me of the country for?
Pinchwife	How’s this! what, pish at the country?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Let me alone; I am not well.
Pinchwife	O, if that be all—what ails my dearest?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Truly, I don’t know: but I have not been well since you told me there was a gallant at the play in love with me.
Pinchwife	Ha!—
Alithea	That’s by my example too!
Pinchwife	Nay, if you are not well, but are so concerned, because a lewd fellow chanced to lie, and say he liked you, you’ll make me sick too.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Of what sickness?
Pinchwife	O, of that which is worse than the plague, jealousy.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pish, you jeer! I’m sure there’s no such disease in our receipt-book at home.
Pinchwife	No, thou never met’st with it, poor innocent.—Well, if thou cuckold me, ’twill be my own fault—for cuckolds and bastards are generally makers of their own fortune. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Well, but pray, bud, let’s go to a play tonight.
Pinchwife	’Tis just done, she comes from it. But why are you so eager to see a play?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Faith, dear, not that I care one pin for their talk there; but I like to look upon the playermen, and would see, if I could, the gallant you say loves me: that’s all, dear bud.
Pinchwife	Is that all, dear bud?
Alithea	This proceeds from my example!
Mrs. Pinchwife	But if the play be done, let’s go abroad, however, dear bud.
Pinchwife	Come have a little patience and thou shalt go into the country on Friday.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Therefore I would see first some sights to tell my neighbours of. Nay, I will go abroad, that’s once.
Alithea	I’m the cause of this desire too!
Pinchwife	But now I think on’t, who, who was the cause of Horner’s coming to my lodgings today? That was you.
Alithea	No, you, because you would not let him see your handsome wife out of your lodging.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Why, O Lord! did the gentleman come hither to see me indeed?
Pinchwife	No, no.—You are not the cause of that damned question too, Mistress Alithea?—Aside. Well, she’s in the right of it. He is in love with my wife—and comes after her—’tis so—but I’ll nip his love in the bud; lest he should follow us into the country, and break his chariot-wheel near our house, on purpose for an excuse to come to’t. But I think I know the town.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Come, pray, bud, let’s go abroad before ’tis late; for I will go, that’s flat and plain.
Pinchwife	Aside. So! the obstinacy already of the town-wife; and I must, whilst she’s here, humour her like one.—Aloud. Sister, how shall we do, that she may not be seen, or known?
Alithea	Let her put on her mask.
Pinchwife	Pshaw! a mask makes people but the more inquisitive, and is as ridiculous a disguise as a stage-beard: her shape, stature, habit will be known. And if we should meet with Horner, he would be sure to take acquaintance with us, must wish her joy, kiss her, talk to her, leer upon her, and the devil and all. No, I’ll not use her to a mask, ’tis dangerous; for masks have made more cuckolds than the best faces that ever were known.
Alithea	How will you do then?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, shall we go? The Exchange will be shut, and I have a mind to see that.
Pinchwife	So—I have it—I’ll dress her up in the suit we are to carry down to her brother, little Sir James; nay, I understand the town-tricks. Come, let’s go dress her. A mask! no—a woman masked, like a covered dish, gives a man curiosity and appetite; when, it may be, uncovered, ’twould turn his stomach: no, no.
Alithea	Indeed your comparison is something a greasy one: but I had a gentle gallant used to say, A beauty masked, like the sun in eclipse, gathers together more gazers than if it shined out.
	Exeunt.

Scene II

The New Exchange.

	Enter Horner, Harcourt, and Dorilant.
Dorilant	Engaged to women, and not sup with us!
Horner	Ay, a pox on ’em all!
Harcourt	You were much a more reasonable man in the morning, and had as noble resolutions against ’em, as a widower of a week’s liberty.
Dorilant	Did I ever think to see you keep company with women in vain?
Horner	In vain: no—’tis since I can’t love ’em, to be revenged on ’em.
Harcourt	Now your sting is gone, you looked in the box amongst all those women like a drone in the hive; all upon you, shoved and ill-used by ’em all, and thrust from one side to t’other.
Dorilant	Yet he must be buzzing amongst ’em still, like other beetle-headed liquorish drones. Avoid ’em, and hate ’em, as they hate you.
Horner	Because I do hate ’em, and would hate ’em yet more, I’ll frequent ’em. You may see by marriage, nothing makes a man hate a woman more than her constant conversation. In short, I converse with ’em, as you do with rich fools, to laugh at ’em and use ’em ill.
Dorilant	But I would no more sup with women, unless I could lie with ’em, than sup with a rich coxcomb, unless I could cheat him.
Horner	Yes, I have known thee sup with a fool for his drinking; if he could set out your hand that way only, you were satisfied, and if he were a wine-swallowing mouth, ’twas enough.
Harcourt	Yes, a man drinks often with a fool, as he tosses with a marker, only to keep his hand in use. But do the ladies drink?
Horner	Yes, sir; and I shall have the pleasure at least of laying ’em flat with a bottle, and bring as much scandal that way upon ’em as formerly t’other.
Harcourt	Perhaps you may prove as weak a brother among ’em that way as t’other.
Dorilant	Foh! drinking with women is as unnatural as scolding with ’em. But ’tis a pleasure of decayed fornicators, and the basest way of quenching love.
Harcourt	Nay, ’tis drowning love, instead of quenching it. But leave us for civil women too!
Dorilant	Ay, when he can’t be the better for ’em. We hardly pardon a man that leaves his friend for a wench, and that’s a pretty lawful call.
Horner	Faith, I would not leave you for ’em, if they would not drink.
Dorilant	Who would disappoint his company at Lewis’s for a gossiping?
Harcourt	Foh! Wine and women, good apart, together are as nauseous as sack and sugar. But hark you, sir, before you go, a little of your advice; an old maimed general, when unfit for action, is fittest for counsel. I have other designs upon women than eating and drinking with them; I am in love with Sparkish’s mistress, whom he is to marry tomorrow: now how shall I get her?
	Enter Sparkish, looking about.
Horner	Why, here comes one will help you to her.
Harcourt	He! he, I tell you, is my rival, and will hinder my love.
Horner	No; a foolish rival and a jealous husband assist their rival’s designs; for they are sure to make their women hate them, which is the first step to their love for another man.
Harcourt	But I cannot come near his mistress but in his company.
Horner	Still the better for you; for fools are most easily cheated when they themselves are accessories: and he is to be bubbled of his mistress as of his money, the common mistress, by keeping him company.
Sparkish	Who is that that is to be bubbled? Faith, let me snack; I han’t met with a bubble since Christmas. ’Gad, I think bubbles are like their brother woodcocks, go out with the cold weather.
Harcourt	A pox! he did not hear all, I hope. Apart to Horner.
Sparkish	Come, you bubbling rogues you, where do we sup?—Oh, Harcourt, my mistress tells me you have been making fierce love to her all the play long: ha! ha!—But I—
Harcourt	I make love to her!
Sparkish	Nay, I forgive thee, for I think I know thee, and I know her; but I am sure I know myself.
Harcourt	Did she tell you so? I see all women are like these of the Exchange; who, to enhance the prize of their commodities, report to their fond customers offers which were never made ’em.
Horner	Ay, women are apt to tell before the intrigue, as men after it, and so show themselves the vainer sex. But hast thou a mistress, Sparkish? ’Tis as hard for me to believe it, as that thou ever hadst a bubble, as you bragged just now.
Sparkish	O, your servant, sir: are you at your raillery, sir? But we are some of us beforehand with you today at the play. The wits were something bold with you, sir; did you not hear us laugh?
Horner	Yes; but I thought you had gone to plays, to laugh at the poet’s wit, not at your own.
Sparkish	Your servant, sir: no, I thank you. ’Gad I go to a play as to a country treat; I carry my own wine to one, and my own wit to t’other, or else I’m sure I should not be merry at either. And the reason why we are so often louder than the players, is, because we think we speak more wit, and so become the poet’s rivals in his audience: for to tell you the truth, we hate the silly rogues; nay, so much, that we find fault even with their bawdy upon the stage, whilst we talk nothing else in the pit as loud.
Horner	But why shouldst thou hate the silly poets? Thou hast too much wit to be one; and they, like whores, are only hated by each other: and thou dost scorn writing, I’m sure.
Sparkish	Yes; I’d have you to know I scorn writing: but women, women, that make men do all foolish things, make ’em write songs too. Everybody does it. ’Tis even as common with lovers, as playing with fans; and you can no more help rhyming to your Phillis, than drinking to your Phillis.
Harcourt	Nay, poetry in love is no more to be avoided than jealousy.
Dorilant	But the poets damned your songs, did they?
Sparkish	Damn the poets! they have turned ’em into burlesque, as they call it. That burlesque is a hocus-pocus trick they have got, which, by the virtue of Hictius doctius topsy turvy, they make a wise and witty man in the world, a fool upon the stage you know not how: and ’tis therefore I hate ’em too, for I know not but it may be my own case; for they’ll put a man into a play for looking asquint. Their predecessors were contented to make serving-men only their stage-fools: but these rogues must have gentlemen, with a pox to ’em, nay, knights; and, indeed, you shall hardly see a fool upon the stage but he’s a knight. And to tell you the truth, they have kept me these six years from being a knight in earnest, for fear of being knighted in a play, and dubbed a fool.
Dorilant	Blame ’em not, they must follow their copy, the age.
Harcourt	But why shouldst thou be afraid of being in a play, who expose yourself every day in the playhouses, and at public places?
Horner	’Tis but being on the stage, instead of standing on a bench in the pit.
Dorilant	Don’t you give money to painters to draw you like? and are you afraid of your pictures at length in a playhouse, where all your mistresses may see you?
Sparkish	A pox! painters don’t draw the smallpox or pimples in one’s face. Come, damn all your silly authors whatever, all books and booksellers, by the world; and all readers, courteous or uncourteous!
Harcourt	But who comes here, Sparkish?
	Enter Pinchwife* and Mrs. Pinchwife in man’s clothes, Alithea and Lucy.*
Sparkish	Oh, hide me! There’s my mistress too. Sparkish hides himself behind Harcourt.
Harcourt	She sees you.
Sparkish	But I will not see her. ’Tis time to go to Whitehall, and I must not fail the drawing-room.
Harcourt	Pray, first carry me, and reconcile me to her.
Sparkish	Another time. Faith, the king will have supped.
Harcourt	Not with the worse stomach for thy absence. Thou art one of those fools that think their attendance at the king’s meals as necessary as his physicians, when you are more troublesome to him than his doctors or his dogs.
Sparkish	Pshaw! I know my interest, sir. Prithee hide me.
Horner	Your servant, Pinchwife.—What, he knows us not!
Pinchwife	Come along. To his Wife* aside.*
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray, have you any ballads? give me sixpenny worth.
Bookseller	We have no ballads.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Then give me Covent Garden Drollery, and a play or two—Oh, here’s Tarugo’s Wiles, and The Slighted Maiden;7 I’ll have them.
Pinchwife	No; plays are not for your reading. Come along; will you discover yourself? Apart to her.
Horner	Who is that pretty youth with him, Sparkish?
Sparkish	I believe his wife’s brother, because he’s something like her: but I never saw her but once.
Horner	Extremely handsome; I have seen a face like it too. Let us follow ’em.
	Exeunt Pinchwife, Mrs. Pinchwife, Pinchwife, Alithea, and Lucy; Horner* and Dorilant following them.*
Harcourt	Come, Sparkish, your mistress saw you, and will be angry you go not to her. Besides, I would fain be reconciled to her, which none but you can do, dear friend.
Sparkish	Well, that’s a better reason, dear friend. I would not go near her now for hers or my own sake; but I can deny you nothing: for though I have known thee a great while, never go, if I do not love thee as well as a new acquaintance.
Harcourt	I am obliged to you indeed, dear friend. I would be well with her, only to be well with thee still; for these ties to wives usually dissolve all ties to friends. I would be contented she should enjoy you a-nights, but I would have you to myself a-days as I have had, dear friend.
Sparkish	And thou shalt enjoy me a-days, dear, dear friend, never stir: and I’ll be divorced from her, sooner than from thee. Come along.
Harcourt	Aside. So, we are hard put to’t, when we make our rival our procurer; but neither she nor her brother would let me come near her now. When all’s done, a rival is the best cloak to steal to a mistress under, without suspicion; and when we have once got to her as we desire, we throw him off like other cloaks.
	Exit Sparkish, Harcourt* following him.*
	Reenter Pinchwife* and Mrs. Pinchwife.*
Pinchwife	To Alithea. Sister, if you will not go, we must leave you.—Aside. The fool her gallant and she will muster up all the young saunterers of this place, and they will leave their dear sempstresses to follow us. What a swarm of cuckolds and cuckold-makers are here!—Come, let’s be gone, Mistress Margery.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Don’t you believe that; I han’t half my bellyfull of sights yet.
Pinchwife	Then walk this way.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Lord, what a power of brave signs are here! stay—the Bull’s-Head, the Ram’s-Head, and the Stag’s-Head, dear—
Pinchwife	Nay, if every husband’s proper sign here were visible, they would be all alike.
Mrs. Pinchwife	What d’ye mean by that, bud?
Pinchwife	’Tis no matter—no matter, bud.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray tell me: nay, I will know.
Pinchwife	They would be all Bulls, Stags, and Rams-heads.
	Exeunt Pinchwife* and Mrs. Pinchwife.*
	Reenter Sparkish, Harcourt, Alithea, and Lucy, at the other side.
Sparkish	Come, dear madam, for my sake you shall be reconciled to him.
Alithea	For your sake I hate him.
Harcourt	That’s something too cruel, madam, to hate me for his sake.
Sparkish	Ay indeed, madam, too, too cruel to me, to hate my friend for my sake.
Alithea	I hate him because he is your enemy; and you ought to hate him too, for making love to me, if you love me.
Sparkish	That’s a good one! I hate a man for loving you! If he did love you, ’tis but what he can’t help; and ’tis your fault, not his, if he admires you. I hate a man for being of my opinion! I’ll n’er do’t, by the world.
Alithea	Is it for your honour, or mine, to suffer a man to make love to me, who am to marry you tomorrow?
Sparkish	Is it for your honour, or mine, to have me jealous? That he makes love to you, is a sign you are handsome; and that I am not jealous, is a sign you are virtuous. That I think is for your honour.
Alithea	But ’tis your honour too I am concerned for.
Harcourt	But why, dearest madam, will you be more concerned for his honour than he is himself? Let his honour alone, for my sake and his. He! he has no honour—
Sparkish	How’s that?
Harcourt	But what my dear friend can guard himself.
Sparkish	O ho—that’s right again.
Harcourt	Your care of his honour argues his neglect of it, which is no honour to my dear friend here. Therefore once more, let his honour go which way it will, dear madam.
Sparkish	Ay, ay; were it for my honour to marry a woman whose virtue I suspected, and could not trust her in a friend’s hands?
Alithea	Are you not afraid to lose me?
Harcourt	He afraid to lose you, madam! No, no—you may see how the most estimable and most glorious creature in the world is valued by him. Will you not see it?
Sparkish	Right, honest Frank, I have that noble value for her that I cannot be jealous of her.
Alithea	You mistake him. He means, you care not for me, nor who has me.
Sparkish	Lord, madam, I see you are jealous! Will you wrest a poor man’s meaning from his words?
Alithea	You astonish me, sir, with your want of jealousy.
Sparkish	And you make me giddy, madam, with your jealousy and fears, and virtue and honour. ’Gad, I see virtue makes a woman as troublesome as a little reading or learning.
Alithea	Monstrous!
Lucy	Well, to see what easy husbands these women of quality can meet with! a poor chambermaid can never have such ladylike luck. Besides, he’s thrown away upon her. She’ll make no use of her fortune, her blessing, none to a gentleman, for a pure cuckold; for it requires good breeding to be a cuckold. Aside.
Alithea	I tell you then plainly, he pursues me to marry me.
Sparkish	Pshaw!
Harcourt	Come, madam, you see you strive in vain to make him jealous of me. My dear friend is the kindest creature in the world to me.
Sparkish	Poor fellow!
Harcourt	But his kindness only is not enough for me, without your favour, your good opinion, dear madam: ’tis that must perfect my happiness. Good gentleman, he believes all I say: would you would do so! Jealous of me! I would not wrong him nor you for the world.
Sparkish	Look you there. Hear him, hear him, and do not walk away so. Alithea walks carelessly to and fro.
Harcourt	I love you, madam, so—
Sparkish	How’s that? Nay, now you begin to go too far indeed.
Harcourt	So much, I confess, I say, I love you, that I would not have you miserable, and cast yourself away upon so unworthy and inconsiderable a thing as what you see here. Clapping his hand on his breast, points at Sparkish.
Sparkish	No, faith, I believe thou wouldst not: now his meaning is plain; but I knew before thou wouldst not wrong me, nor her.
Harcourt	No, no, Heavens forbid the glory of her sex should fall so low, as into the embraces of such a contemptible wretch, the least of mankind—my friend here—I injure him! Embracing Sparkish.
Alithea	Very well.
Sparkish	No, no, dear friend, I knew it.—Madam, you see he will rather wrong himself than me, in giving himself such names.
Alithea	Do not you understand him yet?
Sparkish	Yes: how modestly he speaks of himself, poor fellow!
Alithea	Methinks he speaks impudently of yourself, since—before yourself too; insomuch that I can no longer suffer his scurrilous abusiveness to you, no more than his love to me. Offers to go.
Sparkish	Nay, nay, madam, pray stay—his love to you! Lord, madam, has he not spoke yet plain enough?
Alithea	Yes, indeed, I should think so.
Sparkish	Well then, by the world, a man can’t speak civilly to a woman now, but presently she says, he makes love to her. Nay, madam, you shall stay, with your pardon, since you have not yet understood him, till he has made an éclaircissement of his love to you, that is, what kind of love it is. Answer to thy catechism, friend; do you love my mistress here?
Harcourt	Yes, I wish she would not doubt it.
Sparkish	But how do you love her?
Harcourt	With all my soul.
Alithea	I thank him, methinks he speaks plain enough now.
Sparkish	To Alithea. You are out still.—But with what kind of love, Harcourt?
Harcourt	With the best and the truest love in the world.
Sparkish	Look you there then, that is with no matrimonial love, I’m sure.
Alithea	How’s that? do you say matrimonial love is not best?
Sparkish	’Gad, I went too far ere I was aware. But speak for thyself, Harcourt, you said you would not wrong me nor her.
Harcourt	No, so, madam, e’en take him for Heaven’s sake.
Sparkish	Look you there, madam.
Harcourt	Who should in all justice be yours, he that loves you most. Claps his hand on his breast.
Alithea	Look you there, Mr. Sparkish, who’s that?
Sparkish	Who should it be?—Go on, Harcourt.
Harcourt	Who loves you more than women titles, or fortune fools. Points at Sparkish.
Sparkish	Look you there, he means me still, for he points at me.
Alithea	Ridiculous!
Harcourt	Who can only match your faith and constancy in love.
Sparkish	Ay.
Harcourt	Who knows, if it be possible, how to value so much beauty and virtue.
Sparkish	Ay.
Harcourt	Whose love can no more be equalled in the world, than that heavenly form of yours.
Sparkish	No.
Harcourt	Who could no more suffer a rival, than your absence, and yet could no more suspect your virtue, than his own constancy in his love to you.
Sparkish	No.
Harcourt	Who, in fine, loves you better than his eyes, that first made him love you.
Sparkish	Ay—Nay, madam, faith, you shan’t go till—
Alithea	Have a care, lest you make me stay too long.
Sparkish	But till he has saluted you; that I may be assured you are friends, after his honest advice and declaration. Come, pray, madam, be friends with him.
	Reenter Pinchwife* and Mrs. Pinchwife.*
Alithea	You must pardon me, sir, that I am not yet so obedient to you.
Pinchwife	What, invite your wife to kiss men? Monstrous! are you not ashamed? I will never forgive you.
Sparkish	Are you not ashamed, that I should have more confidence in the chastity of your family than you have? You must not teach me, I am a man of honour, sir, though I am frank and free; I am frank, sir—
Pinchwife	Very frank, sir, to share your wife with your friends.
Sparkish	He is an humble, menial friend, such as reconciles the differences of the marriage bed; you know man and wife do not always agree; I design him for that use, therefore would have him well with my wife.
Pinchwife	A menial friend!—you will get a great many menial friends, by showing your wife as you do.
Sparkish	What then? It may be I have a pleasure in’t, as I have to show fine clothes at a playhouse, the first day, and count money before poor rogues.
Pinchwife	He that shows his wife or money, will be in danger of having them borrowed sometimes.
Sparkish	I love to be envied, and would not marry a wife that I alone could love; loving alone is as dull as eating alone. Is it not a frank age? and I am a frank person; and to tell you the truth, it may be, I love to have rivals in a wife, they make her seem to a man still but as a kept mistress; and so good night, for I must to Whitehall.—Madam, I hope you are now reconciled to my friend; and so I wish you a good night, madam, and sleep if you can: for tomorrow you know I must visit you early with a canonical gentleman. Good night, dear Harcourt.
	Exit.
Harcourt	Madam, I hope you will not refuse my visit tomorrow, if it should be earlier with a canonical gentleman than Mr. Sparkish’s.
Pinchwife	This gentlewoman is yet under my care, therefore you must yet forbear your freedom with her, sir. Coming between Alithea* and Harcourt.*
Harcourt	Must, sir?
Pinchwife	Yes, sir, she is my sister.
Harcourt	’Tis well she is, sir—for I must be her servant, sir.—Madam—
Pinchwife	Come away, sister, we had been gone, if it had not been for you, and so avoided these lewd rake-hells, who seem to haunt us.
	Reenter Horner* and Dorilant.*
Horner	How now, Pinchwife!
Pinchwife	Your servant.
Horner	What! I see a little time in the country makes a man turn wild and unsociable, and only fit to converse with his horses, dogs, and his herds.
Pinchwife	I have business, sir, and must mind it; your business is pleasure, therefore you and I must go different ways.
Horner	Well, you may go on, but this pretty young gentleman—Takes hold of Mrs. Pinchwife.
Harcourt	The lady—
Dorilant	And the maid—
Horner	Shall stay with us; for I suppose their business is the same with ours, pleasure.
Pinchwife	’Sdeath, he knows her, she carries it so sillily! yet if he does not, I should be more silly to discover it first. Aside.
Alithea	Pray, let us go, sir.
Pinchwife	Come, come—
Horner	To Mrs. Pinchwife. Had you not rather stay with us?—Prithee, Pinchwife, who is this pretty young gentleman?
Pinchwife	One to whom I’m a guardian.—Aside. I wish I could keep her out of your hands.
Horner	Who is he? I never saw anything so pretty in all my life.
Pinchwife	Pshaw! do not look upon him so much, he’s a poor bashful youth, you’ll put him out of countenance.—Come away, brother. Offers to take her away.
Horner	O, your brother!
Pinchwife	Yes, my wife’s brother.—Come, come, she’ll stay supper for us.
Horner	I thought so, for he is very like her I saw you at the play with, whom I told you I was in love with.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Aside. O jeminy! is that he that was in love with me? I am glad on’t, I vow, for he’s a curious fine gentleman, and I love him already, too.—To Pinchwife. Is this he, bud?
Pinchwife	Come away, come away. To his Wife.
Horner	Why, what haste are you in? why won’t you let me talk with him?
Pinchwife	Because you’ll debauch him; he’s yet young and innocent, and I would not have him debauched for anything in the world.—Aside. How she gazes on him! the devil!
Horner	Harcourt, Dorilant, look you here, this is the likeness of that dowdy he told us of, his wife; did you ever see a lovelier creature? The rogue has reason to be jealous of his wife, since she is like him, for she would make all that see her in love with her.
Harcourt	And, as I remember now, she is as like him here as can be.
Dorilant	She is indeed very pretty, if she be like him.
Horner	Very pretty? a very pretty commendation!—she is a glorious creature, beautiful beyond all things I ever beheld.
Pinchwife	So, so.
Harcourt	More beautiful than a poet’s first mistress of imagination.
Horner	Or another man’s last mistress of flesh and blood.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, now you jeer, sir; pray don’t jeer me.
Pinchwife	Come, come.—Aside. By Heavens, she’ll discover herself!
Horner	I speak of your sister, sir.
Pinchwife	Ay, but saying she was handsome, if like him, made him blush.—Aside. I am upon a rack!
Horner	Methinks he is so handsome he should not be a man.
Pinchwife	Aside. O, there ’tis out! he has discovered her! I am not able to suffer any longer.—To his Wife. Come, come away, I say.
Horner	Nay, by your leave, sir, he shall not go yet.—Aside to them. Harcourt, Dorilant, let us torment this jealous rogue a little.
Harcourt and Dorilant	How?
Horner	I’ll show you.
Pinchwife	Come, pray let him go, I cannot stay fooling any longer; I tell you his sister stays supper for us.
Horner	Does she? Come then, we’ll all go to sup with he and thee.
Pinchwife	No, now I think on’t, having stayed so long for us, I warrant she’s gone to bed.—Aside. I wish she and I were well out of their hands.—To his Wife. Come, I must rise early tomorrow, come.
Horner	Well then, if she be gone to bed, I wish her and you a good night. But pray, young gentleman, present my humble service to her.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Thank you heartily, sir.
Pinchwife	Aside. ’Sdeath, she will discover herself yet in spite of me—Aloud. He is something more civil to you, for your kindness to his sister, than I am, it seems.
Horner	Tell her, dear sweet little gentleman, for all your brother there, that you have revived the love I had for her at first sight in the playhouse.
Mrs. Pinchwife	But did you love her indeed, and indeed?
Pinchwife	Aside. So, so.—Aloud. Away, I say.
Horner	Nay, stay.—Yes, indeed, and indeed, pray do you tell her so, and give her this kiss from me. Kisses her.
Pinchwife	Aside. O Heavens! what do I suffer? Now ’tis too plain he knows her, and yet—
Horner	And this, and this—Kisses her again.
Mrs. Pinchwife	What do you kiss me for? I am no woman.
Pinchwife	Aside. So, there, ’tis out.—Aloud. Come, I cannot, nor will stay any longer.
Horner	Nay, they shall send your lady a kiss too. Here, Harcourt, Dorilant, will you not? They kiss her.
Pinchwife	Aside. How! do I suffer this? Was I not accusing another just now for this rascally patience, in permitting his wife to be kissed before his face? Ten thousand ulcers gnaw away their lips.—Aloud. Come, come.
Horner	Good night, dear little gentleman; madam, good night: farewell, Pinchwife.—Apart to Harcourt* and Dorilant.* Did not I tell you I would raise his jealous gall?
	Exeunt Horner, Harcourt* and Dorilant.*
Pinchwife	So, they are gone at last; stay, let me see first if the coach be at this door.
	Exit.
	Reenter Horner, Harcourt, and Dorilant.
Horner	What, not gone yet? Will you be sure to do as I desired you, sweet sir?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Sweet sir, but what will you give me then?
Horner	Anything. Come away into the next walk.
	Exit, haling away Mrs. Pinchwife.
Alithea	Hold! hold! what d’ye do?
Lucy	Stay, stay, hold—
Harcourt	Hold, madam, hold, let him present him—he’ll come presently; nay, I will never let you go till you answer my question.
Lucy	For God’s sake, sir, I must follow ’em. Alithea and Lucy, struggling with Harcourt and Dorilant.
Dorilant	No, I have something to present you with too, you shan’t follow them.
	Reenter Pinchwife.
Pinchwife	Where?—how—what’s become of?—gone!—whither?
Lucy	He’s only gone with the gentleman, who will give him something, an’t please your worship.
Pinchwife	Something!—give him something, with a pox!—where are they?
Alithea	In the next walk only, brother.
Pinchwife	Only, only! where, where?
	Exit and returns presently, then goes out again.
Harcourt	What’s the matter with him? why so much concerned? But, dearest madam—
Alithea	Pray let me go, sir; I have said and suffered enough already.
Harcourt	Then you will not look upon, nor pity, my sufferings?
Alithea	To look upon ’em, when I cannot help ’em, were cruelty, not pity; therefore, I will never see you more.
Harcourt	Let me then, madam, have my privilege of a banished lover, complaining or railing, and giving you but a farewell reason why, if you cannot condescend to marry me, you should not take that wretch, my rival.
Alithea	He only, not you, since my honour is engaged so far to him, can give me a reason why I should not marry him; but if he be true, and what I think him to me, I must be so to him. Your servant, sir.
Harcourt	Have women only constancy when ’tis a vice, and are, like Fortune, only true to fools?
Dorilant	Thou sha’t not stir, thou robust creature; you see I can deal with you, therefore you should stay the rather, and be kind. To Lucy, who struggles to get from him.
	Reenter Pinchwife.
Pinchwife	Gone, gone, not to be found! quite gone! ten thousand plagues go with ’em! Which way went they?
Alithea	But into t’other walk, brother.
Lucy	Their business will be done presently sure, an’t please your worship; it can’t be long in doing, I’m sure on’t.
Alithea	Are they not there?
Pinchwife	No, you know where they are, you infamous wretch, eternal shame of your family, which you do not dishonour enough yourself you think, but you must help her to do it too, thou legion of bawds!
Alithea	Good brother—
Pinchwife	Damned, damned sister!
Alithea	Look you here, she’s coming.
	Reenter Mrs. Pinchwife* running, with her hat full of oranges and dried fruit under her arm, Horner following.*
Mrs. Pinchwife	O dear bud, look you here what I have got, see!
Pinchwife	And what I have got here too, which you can’t see! Aside, rubbing his forehead.
Mrs. Pinchwife	The fine gentleman has given me better things yet.
Pinchwife	Has he so?—Aside. Out of breath and coloured!—I must hold yet.
Horner	I have only given your little brother an orange, sir.
Pinchwife	To Horner. Thank you, sir.—Aside. You have only squeezed my orange, I suppose, and given it me again; yet I must have a city patience.—To his Wife. Come, come away.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Stay, till I have put up my fine things, bud.
	Enter Sir Jasper Fidget.
Sir Jasper	O, Master Horner, come, come, the ladies stay for you; your mistress, my wife, wonders you make not more haste to her.
Horner	I have stayed this half hour for you here, and ’tis your fault I am not now with your wife.
Sir Jasper	But, pray, don’t let her know so much; the truth on’t is, I was advancing a certain project to his majesty about—I’ll tell you.
Horner	No, let’s go, and hear it at your house. Good night, sweet little gentleman; one kiss more, you’ll remember me now, I hope. Kisses her.
Dorilant	What, Sir Jasper, will you separate friends? He promised to sup with us, and if you take him to your house, you’ll be in danger of our company too.
Sir Jasper	Alas! gentlemen, my house is not fit for you; there are none but civil women there, which are not for your turn. He, you know, can bear with the society of civil women now, ha! ha! ha! besides, he’s one of my family—he’s—he! he! he!
Dorilant	What is he?
Sir Jasper	Faith, my eunuch, since you’ll have it; he! he! he!
	Exeunt Sir Jasper Fidget* and Horner.*
Dorilant	I rather wish thou wert his or my cuckold. Harcourt, what a good cuckold is lost there for want of a man to make him one? Thee and I cannot have Horner’s privilege, who can make use of it.
Harcourt	Ay, to poor Horner ’tis like coming to an estate at threescore, when a man can’t be the better for’t.
Pinchwife	Come.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Presently, bud.
Dorilant	Come, let us go too.—To Alithea. Madam, your servant.—To Lucy. Good night, strapper.
Harcourt	Madam, though you will not let me have a good day or night, I wish you one; but dare not name the other half of my wish.
Alithea	Good night, sir, forever.
Mrs. Pinchwife	I don’t know where to put this here, dear bud, you shall eat it; nay, you shall have part of the fine gentleman’s good things, or treat, as you call it, when we come home.
Pinchwife	Indeed, I deserve it, since I furnished the best part of it. Strikes away the orange. The gallant treats presents, and gives the ball; But ’tis the absent cuckold pays for all.
	Exeunt.

fetching the rest…

Introduction

Steele has published, in the Tatler of April 16, 1709, a very just criticism upon this play, which, as it cannot fail to interest the reader, I venture to subjoin.

“Will’s Coffeehouse, April 14.

“This evening the Comedy, called The Country Wife, was acted in Drury Lane, for the benefit of Mrs. Bignell. The part which gives name to the Play was performed by herself. Through the whole action she made a very pretty figure, and exactly entered into the nature of the part. Her husband, in the Drama, is represented to be one of those debauchees who run through the vices of the town, and believe, when they think fit, they can marry and settle at their ease. His own knowledge of the iniquity of the age makes him choose a wife wholly ignorant of it, and place his security in her want of skill to abuse him. The Poet, on many occasions, where the propriety of the character will admit of it, insinuates that there is no defence against vice but the contempt of it: and has, in the natural ideas of an untainted innocent, shown the gradual steps to ruin and destruction which persons of condition run into, without the help of a good education to form their conduct. The torment of a jealous coxcomb, which arises from his own false maxims, and the aggravation of his pain by the very words in which he sees her innocence, makes a very pleasant and instructive satire. The character of Horner, and the design of it, is a good representation of the age in which that Comedy was written: at which time love and wenching were the business of life, and the gallant manner of pursuing women was the best recommendation at Court. To this only it is to be imputed that a Gentleman of Mr. Wycherley’s character and sense condescends to represent the insults done to the honour of the bed without just reproof; but to have drawn a man of probity with regard to such considerations had been a monster, and a Poet had at that time discovered his want of knowing the manners of the Court he lived in, by a virtuous character in his fine gentleman, as he would show his ignorance by drawing a vicious one to please the present audience.”

Dramatis Personae

Mr. Horner.

Mr. Harcourt.

Mr. Dorilant.

Mr. Pinchwife.

Mr. Sparkish.

Sir Jasper Fidget.

A Boy.

A Quack.

Waiters, Servants, and Attendants.

Mrs. Margery Pinchwife.

Alithea, Sister of Pinchwife.

Lady Fidget.

Mrs. Dainty Fidget, Sister of Sir Jasper.

Mrs. Squeamish.

Old Lady Squeamish.

Lucy, Alithea’s Maid.

Scene—London.

Prologue

Spoken by Mr. Hart.2

Act I

Scene I

Horner’s lodging.

	Enter Horner, and Quack* following him at a distance.*
Horner	Aside. A quack is as fit for a pimp, as a midwife for a bawd; they are still but in their way, both helpers of nature.—Aloud. Well, my dear doctor, hast thou done what I desired?
Quack	I have undone you forever with the women, and reported you throughout the whole town as bad as an eunuch, with as much trouble as if I had made you one in earnest.
Horner	But have you told all the midwives you know, the orange wenches at the playhouses, the city husbands, and old fumbling keepers of this end of the town? for they’ll be the readiest to report it.
Quack	I have told all the chambermaids, waiting-women, tire-women, and old women of my acquaintance; nay, and whispered it as a secret to ’em, and to the whisperers of Whitehall; so that you need not doubt ’twill spread, and you will be as odious to the handsome young women, as—
Horner	As the smallpox. Well—
Quack	And to the married women of this end of the town, as—
Horner	As the great one; nay, as their own husbands.
Quack	And to the city dames, as aniseed Robin, of filthy and contemptible memory; and they will frighten their children with your name, especially their females.
Horner	And cry, Horner’s coming to carry you away. I am only afraid ’twill not be believed. You told ’em it was by an English-French disaster, and an English-French chirurgeon, who has given me at once not only a cure, but an antidote for the future against that damned malady, and that worse distemper, love, and all other women’s evils?
Quack	Your late journey into France has made it the more credible, and your being here a fortnight before you appeared in public, looks as if you apprehended the shame, which I wonder you do not. Well, I have been hired by young gallants to belie ’em t’other way; but you are the first would be thought a man unfit for women.
Horner	Dear Mr. Doctor, let vain rogues be contented only to be thought abler men than they are, generally ’tis all the pleasure they have; but mine lies another way.
Quack	You take, methinks, a very preposterous way to it, and as ridiculous as if we operators in physic should put forth bills to disparage our medicaments, with hopes to gain customers.
Horner	Doctor, there are quacks in love as well as physic, who get but the fewer and worse patients for their boasting; a good name is seldom got by giving it one’s self; and women, no more than honour, are compassed by bragging. Come, come, Doctor, the wisest lawyer never discovers the merits of his cause till the trial; the wealthiest man conceals his riches, and the cunning gamester his play. Shy husbands and keepers, like old rooks, are not to be cheated but by a new unpractised trick: false friendship will pass now no more than false dice upon ’em; no, not in the city.
	Enter Boy.
Boy	There are two ladies and a gentleman coming up.
	Exit.
Horner	A pox! some unbelieving sisters of my former acquaintance, who, I am afraid, expect their sense should be satisfied of the falsity of the report. No—this formal fool and women!
	Enter Sir Jasper Fidget, Lady Fidget, and Mrs. Dainty Fidget.
Quack	His wife and sister.
Sir Jasper	My coach breaking just now before your door, sir, I look upon as an occasional reprimand to me, sir, for not kissing your hands, sir, since your coming out of France, sir; and so my disaster, sir, has been my good fortune, sir; and this is my wife and sister, sir.
Horner	What then, sir?
Sir Jasper	My lady, and sister, sir.—Wife, this is Master Horner.
Lady Fidget	Master Horner, husband!
Sir Jasper	My lady, my Lady Fidget, sir.
Horner	So, sir.
Sir Jasper	Won’t you be acquainted with her, sir?—Aside. So, the report is true, I find, by his coldness or aversion to the sex; but I’ll play the wag with him.—Aloud. Pray salute my wife, my lady, sir.
Horner	I will kiss no man’s wife, sir, for him, sir; I have taken my eternal leave, sir, of the sex already, sir.
Sir Jasper	Aside. Ha! ha! ha! I’ll plague him yet.—Aloud. Not know my wife, sir?
Horner	I do know your wife, sir; she’s a woman, sir, and consequently a monster, sir, a greater monster than a husband, sir.
Sir Jasper	A husband! how, sir?
Horner	So, sir; but I make no more cuckolds, sir. Makes horns.
Sir Jasper	Ha! ha! ha! Mercury! Mercury!
Lady Fidget	Pray, Sir Jasper, let us be gone from this rude fellow.
Mrs. Dainty	Who, by his breeding, would think he had ever been in France?
Lady Fidget	Foh! he’s but too much a French fellow, such as hate women of quality and virtue for their love to their husbands. Sir Jasper, a woman is hated by ’em as much for loving her husband as for loving their money. But pray let’s be gone.
Horner	You do well, madam; for I have nothing that you came for. I have brought over not so much as a bawdy picture, no new postures, nor the second part of the Ecole des Filles; nor—
Quack	Hold, for shame, sir! what d’ye mean? you’ll ruin yourself forever with the sex—Apart to Horner.
Sir Jasper	Ha! ha! ha! he hates women perfectly, I find.
Mrs. Dainty	What pity ’tis he should!
Lady Fidget	Ay, he’s a base fellow for’t. But affectation makes not a woman more odious to them than virtue.
Horner	Because your virtue is your greatest affectation, madam.
Lady Fidget	How, you saucy fellow! would you wrong my honour?
Horner	If I could.
Lady Fidget	How d’ye mean, sir?
Sir Jasper	Ha! ha! ha! no, he can’t wrong your ladyship’s honour, upon my honour. He, poor man—hark you in your ear—a mere eunuch. Whispers.
Lady Fidget	O filthy French beast! foh! foh! why do we stay? let’s be gone: I can’t endure the sight of him.
Sir Jasper	Stay but till the chairs come; they’ll be here presently.
Lady Fidget	No, no.
Sir Jasper	Nor can I stay longer. ’Tis, let me see, a quarter and half quarter of a minute past eleven. The council will be sat; I must away. Business must be preferred always before love and ceremony with the wise, Mr. Horner.
Horner	And the impotent, Sir Jasper.
Sir Jasper	Ay, ay, the impotent, Master Horner; hah! hah! hah!
Lady Fidget	What, leave us with a filthy man alone in his lodgings?
Sir Jasper	He’s an innocent man now, you know. Pray stay, I’ll hasten the chairs to you.—Mr. Horner, your servant; I should be glad to see you at my house. Pray come and dine with me, and play at cards with my wife after dinner; you are fit for women at that game yet, ha! ha!—Aside. ’Tis as much a husband’s prudence to provide innocent diversion for a wife as to hinder her unlawful pleasures; and he had better employ her than let her employ herself.—Aloud. Farewell.
Horner	Your servant, Sir Jasper.
	Exit Sir Jasper.
Lady Fidget	I will not stay with him, foh!—
Horner	Nay, madam, I beseech you stay, if it be but to see I can be as civil to ladies yet as they would desire.
Lady Fidget	No, no, foh! you cannot be civil to ladies.
Mrs. Dainty	You as civil as ladies would desire?
Lady Fidget	No, no, no, foh! foh! foh!
	Exeunt Lady Fidget* and Mrs. Dainty Fidget.*
Quack	Now, I think, I, or you yourself, rather, have done your business with the women.
Horner	Thou art an ass. Don’t you see already, upon the report, and my carriage, this grave man of business leaves his wife in my lodgings, invites me to his house and wife, who before would not be acquainted with me out of jealousy?
Quack	Nay, by this means you may be the more acquainted with the husbands, but the less with the wives.
Horner	Let me alone; if I can but abuse the husbands, I’ll soon disabuse the wives. Stay—I’ll reckon you up the advantages I am like to have by my stratagem. First, I shall be rid of all my old acquaintances, the most insatiable sort of duns, that invade our lodgings in a morning; and next to the pleasure of making a new mistress is that of being rid of an old one, and of all old debts. Love, when it comes to be so, is paid the most unwillingly.
Quack	Well, you may be so rid of your old acquaintances; but how will you get any new ones?
Horner	Doctor, thou wilt never make a good chemist, thou art so incredulous and impatient. Ask but all the young fellows of the town if they do not lose more time, like huntsmen, in starting the game, than in running it down. One knows not where to find ’em; who will or will not. Women of quality are so civil, you can hardly distinguish love from good breeding, and a man is often mistaken: but now I can be sure she that shows an aversion to me loves the sport, as those women that are gone, whom I warrant to be right. And then the next thing is, your women of honour, as you call ’em, are only chary of their reputations, not their persons; and ’tis scandal they would avoid, not men. Now may I have, by the reputation of an eunuch, the privileges of one, and be seen in a lady’s chamber in a morning as early as her husband; kiss virgins before their parents or lovers; and may be, in short, the passe-partout of the town. Now, doctor.
Quack	Nay, now you shall be the doctor; and your process is so new that we do not know but it may succeed.
Horner	Not so new neither; probatum est, doctor.
Quack	Well, I wish you luck, and many patients, whilst I go to mine.
	Exit.
	Enter Harcourt* and Dorilant.*
Harcourt	Come, your appearance at the play yesterday, has, I hope, hardened you for the future against the women’s contempt, and the men’s raillery; and now you’ll abroad as you were wont.
Horner	Did I not bear it bravely?
Dorilant	With a most theatrical impudence, nay, more than the orange-wenches show there, or a drunken vizard-mask, or a great-bellied actress; nay, or the most impudent of creatures, an ill poet; or what is yet more impudent, a secondhand critic.
Horner	But what say the ladies? have they no pity?
Harcourt	What ladies? The vizard-masks, you know, never pity a man when all’s gone, though in their service.
Dorilant	And for the women in the boxes, you’d never pity them when ’twas in your power.
Harcourt	They say ’tis pity but all that deal with common women should be served so.
Dorilant	Nay, I dare swear they won’t admit you to play at cards with them, go to plays with ’em, or do the little duties which other shadows of men are wont to do for ’em.
Horner	What do you call shadows of men?
Dorilant	Half-men.
Horner	What, boys?
Dorilant	Ay, your old boys, old beaux garçons, who, like superannuated stallions, are suffered to run, feed, and whinny with the mares as long as they live, though they can do nothing else.
Horner	Well, a pox on love and wenching! Women serve but to keep a man from better company. Though I can’t enjoy them, I shall you the more. Good fellowship and friendship are lasting, rational, and manly pleasures.
Harcourt	For all that, give me some of those pleasures you call effeminate too; they help to relish one another.
Horner	They disturb one another.
Harcourt	No, mistresses are like books. If you pore upon them too much, they doze you, and make you unfit for company; but if used discreetly, you are the fitter for conversation by ’em.
Dorilant	A mistress should be like a little country retreat near the town; not to dwell in constantly, but only for a night and away, to taste the town the better when a man returns.
Horner	I tell you, ’tis as hard to be a good fellow, a good friend, and a lover of women, as ’tis to be a good fellow, a good friend, and a lover of money. You cannot follow both, then choose your side. Wine gives you liberty, love takes it away.
Dorilant	Gad, he’s in the right on’t.
Horner	Wine gives you joy; love, grief and tortures, besides surgeons. Wine makes us witty; love, only sots. Wine makes us sleep; love breaks it.
Dorilant	By the world he has reason, Harcourt.
Horner	Wine makes—
Dorilant	Ay, wine makes us—makes us princes; love makes us beggars, poor rogues, egad—and wine—
Horner	So, there’s one converted.—No, no, love and wine, oil and vinegar.
Harcourt	I grant it; love will still be uppermost.
Horner	Come, for my part, I will have only those glorious manly pleasures of being very drunk and very slovenly.
	Enter Boy.
Boy	Mr. Sparkish is below, sir.
	Exit.
Harcourt	What, my dear friend! a rogue that is fond of me only, I think, for abusing him.
Dorilant	No, he can no more think the men laugh at him than that women jilt him; his opinion of himself is so good.
Horner	Well, there’s another pleasure by drinking I thought not of—I shall lose his acquaintance, because he cannot drink: and you know ’tis a very hard thing to be rid of him; for he’s one of those nauseous offerers at wit, who, like the worst fiddlers, run themselves into all companies.
Harcourt	One that, by being in the company of men of sense, would pass for one.
Horner	And may so to the shortsighted world; as a false jewel amongst true ones is not discerned at a distance. His company is as troublesome to us as a cuckold’s when you have a mind to his wife’s.
Harcourt	No, the rogue will not let us enjoy one another, but ravishes our conversation; though he signifies no more to’t than Sir Martin Mar-all’s4 gaping, and awkward thrumming upon the lute, does to his man’s voice and music.
Dorilant	And to pass for a wit in town shows himself a fool every night to us, that are guilty of the plot.
Horner	Such wits as he are, to a company of reasonable men, like rooks to the gamesters; who only fill a room at the table, but are so far from contributing to the play, that they only serve to spoil the fancy of those that do.
Dorilant	Nay, they are used like rooks too, snubbed, checked, and abused; yet the rogues will hang on.
Horner	A pox on ’em, and all that force nature, and would be still what she forbids ’em! Affectation is her greatest monster.
Harcourt	Most men are the contraries to that they would seem. Your bully, you see, is a coward with a long sword; the little humbly-fawning physician, with his ebony cane, is he that destroys men.
Dorilant	The usurer, a poor rogue, possessed of mouldy bonds and mortgages; and we they call spendthrifts, are only wealthy, who lay out his money upon daily new purchases of pleasure.
Horner	Ay, your arrantest cheat is your trustee or executor; your jealous man, the greatest cuckold; your churchman the greatest atheist; and your noisy pert rogue of a wit, the greatest fop, dullest ass, and worst company, as you shall see; for here he comes.
	Enter Sparkish.
Sparkish	How is’t, sparks? how is’t? Well, faith, Harry, I must rally thee a little, ha! ha! ha! upon the report in town of thee, ha! ha! ha! I can’t hold i’faith; shall I speak?
Horner	Yes; but you’ll be so bitter then.
Sparkish	Honest Dick and Frank here shall answer for me; I will not be extreme bitter, by the universe.
Harcourt	We will be bound in a ten thousand pound bond, he shall not be bitter at all.
Dorilant	Nor sharp, nor sweet.
Horner	What, not downright insipid?
Sparkish	Nay then, since you are so brisk, and provoke me, take what follows. You must know, I was discoursing and rallying with some ladies yesterday, and they happened to talk of the fine new signs in town—
Horner	Very fine ladies, I believe.
Sparkish	Said I, I know where the best new sign is.—Where? says one of the ladies.—In Covent-Garden, I replied.—Said another, In what street?—In Russel-street, answered I.—Lord, says another, I’m sure there was never a fine new sign there yesterday.—Yes, but there was, said I again; and it came out of France, and has been there a fortnight.
Dorilant	A pox! I can hear no more, prithee.
Horner	No, hear him out; let him tune his crowd a while.
Harcourt	The worst music, the greatest preparation.
Sparkish	Nay, faith, I’ll make you laugh.—It cannot be, says a third lady.—Yes, yes, quoth I again.—Says a fourth lady—
Horner	Look to’t, we’ll have no more ladies.
Sparkish	No—then mark, mark, now. Said I to the fourth, Did you never see Mr. Horner? he lodges in Russel-street, and he’s a sign of a man, you know, since he came out of France; ha! ha! ha!
Horner	But the devil take me if thine be the sign of a jest.
Sparkish	With that they all fell a-laughing, till they bepissed themselves. What, but it does not move you, methinks? Well, I see one had as good go to law without a witness, as break a jest without a laugher on one’s side.—Come, come, sparks, but where do we dine? I have left at Whitehall an earl, to dine with you.
Dorilant	Why, I thought thou hadst loved a man with a title, better than a suit with a French trimming to’t.
Harcourt	Go to him again.
Sparkish	No, sir, a wit to me is the greatest title in the world.
Horner	But go dine with your earl, sir; he may be exception. We are your friends, and will not take it ill to be left, I do assure you.
Harcourt	Nay, faith, he shall go to him.
Sparkish	Nay, pray, gentlemen.
Dorilant	We’ll thrust you out, if you won’t; what, disappoint anybody for us?
Sparkish	Nay, dear gentlemen, hear me.
Horner	No, no, sir, by no means; pray go, sir.
Sparkish	Why, dear rogues—
Dorilant	No, no.
	They all thrust him out of the room.
All	Ha! ha! ha!
	Reenter Sparkish.
Sparkish	But, sparks, pray hear me. What, d’ye think I’ll eat then with gay shallow fops and silent coxcombs? I think wit as necessary at dinner, as a glass of good wine; and that’s the reason I never have any stomach when I eat alone.—Come, but where do we dine?
Horner	Even where you will.
Sparkish	At Chateline’s?
Dorilant	Yes, if you will.
Sparkish	Or at the Cock?5
Dorilant	Yes, if you please.
Sparkish	Or at the Dog and Partridge?
Horner	Ay, if you have a mind to’t; for we shall dine at neither.
Sparkish	Pshaw! with your fooling we shall lose the new play; and I would no more miss seeing a new play the first day, than I would miss sitting in the wit’s row. Therefore I’ll go fetch my mistress, and away.
	Exit.
	Enter Pinchwife.
Horner	Who have we here? Pinchwife?
Pinchwife	Gentlemen, your humble servant.
Horner	Well, Jack, by thy long absence from the town, the grumness of thy countenance, and the slovenliness of thy habit, I should give thee joy, should I not, of marriage?
Pinchwife	Aside. Death! does he know I’m married too? I thought to have concealed it from him at least.—Aloud. My long stay in the country will excuse my dress; and I have a suit of law that brings me up to town, that puts me out of humour. Besides, I must give Sparkish tomorrow five thousand pounds to lie with my sister.
Horner	Nay, you country gentlemen, rather than not purchase, will buy anything; and he is a cracked title, if we may quibble. Well, but am I to give thee joy? I heard thou wert married.
Pinchwife	What then?
Horner	Why, the next thing that is to be heard, is, thou’rt a cuckold.
Pinchwife	Insupportable name! Aside.
Horner	But I did not expect marriage from such a whoremaster as you; one that knew the town so much, and women so well.
Pinchwife	Why, I have married no London wife.
Horner	Pshaw! that’s all one. That grave circumspection in marrying a country wife, is like refusing a deceitful pampered Smithfield jade, to go and be cheated by a friend in the country.
Pinchwife	Aside. A pox on him and his simile!—Aloud. At least we are a little surer of the breed there, know what her keeping has been, whether foiled or unsound.
Horner	Come, come, I have known a clap gotten in Wales; and there are cousins, justices’ clerks, and chaplains in the country, I won’t say coachmen. But she’s handsome and young?
Pinchwife	Aside. I’ll answer as I should do.—Aloud. No, no; she has no beauty but her youth, no attraction but her modesty: wholesome, homely, and huswifely; that’s all.
Dorilant	He talks as like a grazier as he looks.
Pinchwife	She’s too awkward, ill-favoured, and silly to bring to town.
Harcourt	Then methinks you should bring her to be taught breeding.
Pinchwife	To be taught! no, sir, I thank you. Good wives and private soldiers should be ignorant—I’ll keep her from your instructions, I warrant you.
Harcourt	The rogue is as jealous as if his wife were not ignorant. Aside.
Horner	Why, if she be ill-favoured, there will be less danger here for you than by leaving her in the country. We have such variety of dainties that we are seldom hungry.
Dorilant	But they have always coarse, constant, swingeing stomachs in the country.
Harcourt	Foul feeders indeed!
Dorilant	And your hospitality is great there.
Harcourt	Open house; every man’s welcome.
Pinchwife	So, so, gentlemen.
Horner	But prithee, why shouldst thou marry her? If she be ugly, ill-bred, and silly, she must be rich then.
Pinchwife	As rich as if she brought me twenty thousand pound out of this town; for she’ll be as sure not to spend her moderate portion, as a London baggage would be to spend hers, let it be what it would: so ’tis all one. Then, because she’s ugly, she’s the likelier to be my own; and being ill-bred, she’ll hate conversation; and since silly and innocent, will not know the difference betwixt a man of one-and-twenty and one of forty.
Horner	Nine—to my knowledge. But if she be silly, she’ll expect as much from a man of forty-nine, as from him of one-and-twenty. But methinks wit is more necessary than beauty; and I think no young woman ugly that has it, and no handsome woman agreeable without it.
Pinchwife	’Tis my maxim, he’s a fool that marries; but he’s a greater that does not marry a fool. What is wit in a wife good for, but to make a man a cuckold?
Horner	Yes, to keep it from his knowledge.
Pinchwife	A fool cannot contrive to make her husband a cuckold.
Horner	No; but she’ll club with a man that can: and what is worse, if she cannot make her husband a cuckold, she’ll make him jealous, and pass for one: and then ’tis all one.
Pinchwife	Well, well, I’ll take care for one. My wife shall make me no cuckold, though she had your help, Mr. Horner. I understand the town, sir.
Dorilant	His help! Aside.
Harcourt	He’s come newly to town, it seems, and has not heard how things are with him. Aside.
Horner	But tell me, has marriage cured thee of whoring, which it seldom does?
Harcourt	’Tis more than age can do.
Horner	No, the word is, I’ll marry and live honest: but a marriage vow is like a penitent gamester’s oath, and entering into bonds and penalties to stint himself to such a particular small sum at play for the future, which makes him but the more eager; and not being able to hold out, loses his money again, and his forfeit to boot.
Dorilant	Ay, ay, a gamester will be a gamester whilst his money lasts, and a whoremaster whilst his vigour.
Harcourt	Nay, I have known ’em, when they are broke, and can lose no more, keep a fumbling with the box in their hands to fool with only, and hinder other gamesters.
Dorilant	That had wherewithal to make lusty stakes.
Pinchwife	Well, gentlemen, you may laugh at me; but you shall never lie with my wife: I know the town.
Horner	But prithee, was not the way you were in better? is not keeping better than marriage?
Pinchwife	A pox on’t! the jades would jilt me, I could never keep a whore to myself.
Horner	So, then you only married to keep a whore to yourself. Well, but let me tell you, women, as you say, are like soldiers, made constant and loyal by good pay, rather than by oaths and covenants. Therefore I’d advise my friends to keep rather than marry, since too I find, by your example, it does not serve one’s turn; for I saw you yesterday in the eighteenpenny place with a pretty country-wench.
Pinchwife	How the devil! did he see my wife then? I sat there that she might not be seen. But she shall never go to a play again. Aside.
Horner	What! dost thou blush, at nine-and-forty, for having been seen with a wench?
Dorilant	No, faith, I warrant ’twas his wife, which he seated there out of sight; for he’s a cunning rogue, and understands the town.
Harcourt	He blushes. Then ’twas his wife; for men are now more ashamed to be seen with them in public than with a wench.
Pinchwife	Hell and damnation! I’m undone, since Horner has seen her, and they know ’twas she. Aside.
Horner	But prithee, was it thy wife? She was exceeding pretty: I was in love with her at that distance.
Pinchwife	You are like never to be nearer to her. Your servant, gentlemen. Offers to go.
Horner	Nay, prithee stay.
Pinchwife	I cannot; I will not.
Horner	Come, you shall dine with us.
Pinchwife	I have dined already.
Horner	Come, I know thou hast not: I’ll treat thee, dear rogue; thou sha’t spend none of thy Hampshire money today.
Pinchwife	Treat me! So, he uses me already like his cuckold. Aside.
Horner	Nay, you shall not go.
Pinchwife	I must; I have business at home.
	Exit.
Harcourt	To beat his wife. He’s as jealous of her, as a Cheapside husband of a Covent-garden wife.
Horner	Why, ’tis as hard to find an old whoremaster without jealousy and the gout, as a young one without fear, or the pox:— As gout in age from pox in youth proceeds, So wenching past, then jealousy succeeds; The worst disease that love and wenching breeds.
	Exeunt.

Act II

Scene I

A room in Pinchwife’s house.

	Mrs. Margery Pinchwife and Alithea. Pinchwife peeping behind at the door.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray, sister, where are the best fields and woods to walk in, in London?
Alithea	Aside. A pretty question!—Aloud. Why, sister, Mulberry-garden and St. James’s park; and, for close walks, the New Exchange.6
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray, sister, tell me why my husband looks so grum here in town, and keeps me up so close, and will not let me go a-walking, nor let me wear my best gown yesterday.
Alithea	O, he’s jealous, sister.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Jealous! what’s that?
Alithea	He’s afraid you should love another man.
Mrs. Pinchwife	How should he be afraid of my loving another man, when he will not let me see any but himself?
Alithea	Did he not carry you yesterday to a play?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Ay; but we sat amongst ugly people. He would not let me come near the gentry, who sat under us, so that I could not see ’em. He told me, none but naughty women sat there, whom they toused and moused. But I would have ventured, for all that.
Alithea	But how did you like the play?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Indeed I was weary of the play; but I liked hugeously the actors. They are the goodliest, properest men, sister!
Alithea	O, but you must not like the actors, sister.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Ay, how should I help it, sister? Pray, sister, when my husband comes in, will you ask leave for me to go a-walking?
Alithea	A-walking! ha! ha! Lord, a country-gentlewoman’s pleasure is the drudgery of a footpost; and she requires as much airing as her husband’s horses.—Aside. But here comes your husband: I’ll ask, though I’m sure he’ll not grant it.
Mrs. Pinchwife	He says he won’t let me go abroad for fear of catching the pox.
Alithea	Fy! the smallpox you should say.
	Enter Pinchwife.
Mrs. Pinchwife	O my dear, dear bud, welcome home! Why dost thou look so fropish? who has nangered thee?
Pinchwife	You’re a fool. Mrs. Pinchwife goes aside, and cries.
Alithea	Faith, so she is, for crying for no fault, poor tender creature!
Pinchwife	What, you would have her as impudent as yourself, as arrant a jilflirt, a gadder, a magpie; and to say all, a mere notorious town-woman?
Alithea	Brother, you are my only censurer; and the honour of your family will sooner suffer in your wife there than in me, though I take the innocent liberty of the town.
Pinchwife	Hark you, mistress, do not talk so before my wife.—The innocent liberty of the town!
Alithea	Why, pray, who boasts of any intrigue with me? what lampoon has made my name notorious? what ill women frequent my lodgings? I keep no company with any women of scandalous reputations.
Pinchwife	No, you keep the men of scandalous reputations company.
Alithea	Where? would you not have me civil? answer ’em in a box at the plays, in the drawing-room at Whitehall, in St. James’-park, Mulberry-garden, or—
Pinchwife	Hold, hold! Do not teach my wife where the men are to be found: I believe she’s the worse for your town-documents already. I bid you keep her in ignorance, as I do.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Indeed, be not angry with her, bud, she will tell me nothing of the town, though I ask her a thousand times a day.
Pinchwife	Then you are very inquisitive to know, I find?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Not I indeed, dear; I hate London. Our place-house in the country is worth a thousand of’t: would I were there again!
Pinchwife	So you shall, I warrant. But were you not talking of plays and players when I came in?—To Alithea. You are her encourager in such discourses.
Mrs. Pinchwife	No, indeed, dear; she chid me just now for liking the playermen.
Pinchwife	Aside. Nay, if she be so innocent as to own to me her liking them, there is no hurt in’t.—Aloud. Come, my poor rogue, but thou likest none better than me?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Yes, indeed, but I do. The playermen are finer folks.
Pinchwife	But you love none better than me?
Mrs. Pinchwife	You are my own dear bud, and I know you. I hate a stranger.
Pinchwife	Ay, my dear, you must love me only; and not be like the naughty town-women, who only hate their husbands, and love every man else; love plays, visits, fine coaches, fine clothes, fiddles, balls, treats, and so lead a wicked town-life.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, if to enjoy all these things be a town-life, London is not so bad a place, dear.
Pinchwife	How! if you love me, you must hate London.
Alithea	The fool has forbid me discovering to her the pleasures of the town, and he is now setting her agog upon them himself. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	But, husband, do the town-women love the playermen too?
Pinchwife	Yes, I warrant you.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Ay, I warrant you.
Pinchwife	Why, you do not, I hope?
Mrs. Pinchwife	No, no, bud. But why have we no playermen in the country?
Pinchwife	Ha!—Mrs. Minx, ask me no more to go to a play.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, why, love? I did not care for going: but when you forbid me, you make me, as ’twere, desire it.
Alithea	So ’twill be in other things, I warrant. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray let me go to a play, dear.
Pinchwife	Hold your peace, I wo’ not.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Why, love?
Pinchwife	Why, I’ll tell you.
Alithea	Nay, if he tell her, she’ll give him more cause to forbid her that place. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray why, dear?
Pinchwife	First, you like the actors; and the gallants may like you.
Mrs. Pinchwife	What, a homely country girl! No, bud, nobody will like me.
Pinchwife	I tell you yes, they may.
Mrs. Pinchwife	No, no, you jest—I won’t believe you: I will go.
Pinchwife	I tell you then, that one of the lewdest fellows in town, who saw you there, told me he was in love with you.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Indeed! who, who, pray who was’t?
Pinchwife	I’ve gone too far, and slipped before I was aware; how overjoyed she is! Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Was it any Hampshire gallant, any of our neighbours? I promise you, I am beholden to him.
Pinchwife	I promise you, you lie; for he would but ruin you, as he has done hundreds. He has no other love for women but that; such as he look upon women, like basilisks, but to destroy ’em.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Ay, but if he loves me, why should he ruin me? answer me to that. Methinks he should not, I would do him no harm.
Alithea	Ha! ha! ha!
Pinchwife	’Tis very well; but I’ll keep him from doing you any harm, or me either. But here comes company; get you in, get you in.
Mrs. Pinchwife	But, pray, husband, is he a pretty gentleman that loves me?
Pinchwife	In, baggage, in. Thrusts her in, and shuts the door.
	Enter Sparkish* and Harcourt.*
	What, all the lewd libertines of the town brought to my lodging by this easy coxcomb! ’sdeath, I’ll not suffer it.
Sparkish	Here, Harcourt, do you approve my choice?—To Alithea. Dear little rogue, I told you I’d bring you acquainted with all my friends, the wits and—Harcourt salutes her.
Pinchwife	Ay, they shall know her, as well as you yourself will, I warrant you.
Sparkish	This is one of those, my pretty rogue, that are to dance at your wedding tomorrow; and him you must bid welcome ever, to what you and I have.
Pinchwife	Monstrous! Aside.
Sparkish	Harcourt, how dost thou like her, faith? Nay, dear, do not look down; I should hate to have a wife of mine out of countenance at anything.
Pinchwife	Wonderful! Aside.
Sparkish	Tell me, I say, Harcourt, how dost thou like her? Thou hast stared upon her enough, to resolve me.
Harcourt	So infinitely well, that I could wish I had a mistress too, that might differ from her in nothing but her love and engagement to you.
Alithea	Sir, Master Sparkish has often told me that his acquaintance were all wits and raillieurs, and now I find it.
Sparkish	No, by the universe, madam, he does not rally now; you may believe him. I do assure you, he is the honestest, worthiest, truehearted gentlemen—a man of such perfect honour, he would say nothing to a lady he does not mean.
Pinchwife	Praising another man to his mistress! Aside.
Harcourt	Sir, you are so beyond expectation obliging, that—
Sparkish	Nay, egad, I am sure you do admire her extremely; I see’t in your eyes.—He does admire you, madam.—By the world, don’t you?
Harcourt	Yes, above the world, or the most glorious part of it, her whole sex: and till now I never thought I should have envied you, or any man about to marry, but you have the best excuse for marriage I ever knew.
Alithea	Nay, now, sir, I’m satisfied you are of the society of the wits and raillieurs, since you cannot spare your friend, even when he is but too civil to you; but the surest sign is, since you are an enemy to marriage—for that I hear you hate as much as business or bad wine.
Harcourt	Truly, madam, I was never an enemy to marriage till now, because marriage was never an enemy to me before.
Alithea	But why, sir, is marriage an enemy to you now? because it robs you of your friend here? for you look upon a friend married, as one gone into a monastery, that is, dead to the world.
Harcourt	’Tis indeed, because you marry him; I see, madam, you can guess my meaning. I do confess heartily and openly, I wish it were in my power to break the match; by Heavens I would.
Sparkish	Poor Frank!
Alithea	Would you be so unkind to me?
Harcourt	No, no, ’tis not because I would be unkind to you.
Sparkish	Poor Frank! no gad, ’tis only his kindness to me.
Pinchwife	Great kindness to you indeed! Insensible fop, let a man make love to his wife to his face! Aside.
Sparkish	Come, dear Frank, for all my wife there, that shall be, thou shalt enjoy me sometimes, dear rogue. By my honour, we men of wit condole for our deceased brother in marriage, as much as for one dead in earnest: I think that was prettily said of me, ha, Harcourt?—But come, Frank, be not melancholy for me.
Harcourt	No, I assure you, I am not melancholy for you.
Sparkish	Prithee, Frank, dost think my wife that shall be there, a fine person?
Harcourt	I could gaze upon her till I became as blind as you are.
Sparkish	How as I am? how?
Harcourt	Because you are a lover, and true lovers are blind, stock blind.
Sparkish	True, true; but by the world she has wit too, as well as beauty: go, go with her into a corner, and try if she has wit; talk to her anything, she’s bashful before me.
Harcourt	Indeed if a woman wants wit in a corner, she has it nowhere.
Alithea	Sir, you dispose of me a little before your time—Aside to Sparkish.
Sparkish	Nay, nay, madam, let me have an earnest of your obedience, or—go, go, madam—Harcourt courts Alithea aside.
Pinchwife	How, sir! if you are not concerned for the honour of a wife, I am for that of a sister; he shall not debauch her. Be a pander to your own wife! bring men to her! let ’em make love before your face! thrust ’em into a corner together, then leave ’em in private! is this your town wit and conduct?
Sparkish	Ha! ha! ha! a silly wise rogue would make one laugh more than a stark fool, ha! ha! I shall burst. Nay, you shall not disturb ’em; I’ll vex thee, by the world. Struggles with Pinchwife* to keep him from Harcourt and Alithea.*
Alithea	The writings are drawn, sir, settlements made; ’tis too late, sir, and past all revocation.
Harcourt	Then so is my death.
Alithea	I would not be unjust to him.
Harcourt	Then why to me so?
Alithea	I have no obligation to you.
Harcourt	My love.
Alithea	I had his before.
Harcourt	You never had it; he wants, you see, jealousy, the only infallible sign of it.
Alithea	Love proceeds from esteem; he cannot distrust my virtue: besides, he loves me, or he would not marry me.
Harcourt	Marrying you is no more sign of his love than bribing your woman, that he may marry you, is a sign of his generosity. Marriage is rather a sign of interest than love; and he that marries a fortune covets a mistress, not loves her. But if you take marriage for a sign of love, take it from me immediately.
Alithea	No, now you have put a scruple in my head; but in short, sir, to end our dispute, I must marry him, my reputation would suffer in the world else.
Harcourt	No; if you do marry him, with your pardon, madam, your reputation suffers in the world, and you would be thought in necessity for a cloak.
Alithea	Nay, now you are rude, sir.—Mr. Sparkish, pray come hither, your friend here is very troublesome, and very loving.
Harcourt	Hold! hold!—Aside to Alithea.
Pinchwife	D’ye hear that?
Sparkish	Why, d’ye think I’ll seem to be jealous, like a country bumpkin?
Pinchwife	No, rather be a cuckold, like a credulous cit.
Harcourt	Madam, you would not have been so little generous as to have told him.
Alithea	Yes, since you could be so little generous as to wrong him.
Harcourt	Wrong him! no man can do’t, he’s beneath an injury: a bubble, a coward, a senseless idiot, a wretch so contemptible to all the world but you, that—
Alithea	Hold, do not rail at him, for since he is like to be my husband, I am resolved to like him: nay, I think I am obliged to tell him you are not his friend.—Master Sparkish, Master Sparkish!
Sparkish	What, what?—To Harcourt. Now, dear rogue, has not she wit?
Harcourt	Not so much as I thought, and hoped she had. Speaks surlily.
Alithea	Mr. Sparkish, do you bring people to rail at you?
Harcourt	Madam—
Sparkish	How! no; but if he does rail at me, ’tis but in jest, I warrant: what we wits do for one another, and never take any notice of it.
Alithea	He spoke so scurrilously of you, I had no patience to hear him; besides, he has been making love to me.
Harcourt	True, damned telltale woman! Aside.
Sparkish	Pshaw! to show his parts—we wits rail and make love often, but to show our parts: as we have no affections, so we have no malice, we—
Alithea	He said you were a wretch below an injury—
Sparkish	Pshaw!
Harcourt	Damned, senseless, impudent, virtuous jade! Well, since she won’t let me have her, she’ll do as good, she’ll make me hate her. Aside.
Alithea	A common bubble—
Sparkish	Pshaw!
Alithea	A coward—
Sparkish	Pshaw, pshaw!
Alithea	A senseless, drivelling idiot—
Sparkish	How! did he disparage my parts? Nay, then, my honour’s concerned, I can’t put up that, sir, by the world—brother, help me to kill him—Aside. I may draw now, since we have the odds of him:—’tis a good occasion, too, before my mistress—Offers to draw.
Alithea	Hold, hold!
Sparkish	What, what?
Alithea	Aside. I must not let ’em kill the gentleman neither, for his kindness to me: I am so far from hating him, that I wish my gallant had his person and understanding. Nay, if my honour—
Sparkish	I’ll be thy death.
Alithea	Hold, hold! Indeed, to tell the truth, the gentleman said after all, that what he spoke was but out of friendship to you.
Sparkish	How! say, I am, I am a fool, that is, no wit, out of friendship to me?
Alithea	Yes, to try whether I was concerned enough for you; and made love to me only to be satisfied of my virtue, for your sake.
Harcourt	Kind, however. Aside.
Sparkish	Nay, if it were so, my dear rogue, I ask thee pardon; but why would not you tell me so, faith?
Harcourt	Because I did not think on’t, faith.
Sparkish	Come, Horner does not come; Harcourt, let’s be gone to the new play.—Come, madam.
Alithea	I will not go, if you intend to leave me alone in the box, and run into the pit, as you use to do.
Sparkish	Pshaw! I’ll leave Harcourt with you in the box to entertain you, and that’s as good; if I sat in the box, I should be thought no judge but of trimmings.—Come away, Harcourt, lead her down.
	Exeunt Sparkish, Harcourt, and Alithea.
Pinchwife	Well, go thy ways, for the flower of the true town fops, such as spend their estates before they come to ’em, and are cuckolds before they’re married. But let me go look to my own freehold.—How!
	Enter Lady Fidget, Mrs. Dainty Fidget, and Mrs. Squeamish.
Lady Fidget	Your servant, sir: where is your lady? We are come to wait upon her to the new play.
Pinchwife	New play!
Lady Fidget	And my husband will wait upon you presently.
Pinchwife	Aside. Damn your civility.—Aloud. Madam, by no means; I will not see Sir Jasper here, till I have waited upon him at home; nor shall my wife see you till she has waited upon your ladyship at your lodgings.
Lady Fidget	Now we are here, sir?
Pinchwife	No, Madam.
Mrs. Dainty	Pray, let us see her.
Mrs. Squeamish	We will not stir till we see her.
Pinchwife	Aside. A pox on you all!—Goes to the door, and returns. She has locked the door, and is gone abroad.
Lady Fidget	No, you have locked the door, and she’s within.
Mrs. Dainty	They told us below she was here.
Pinchwife	Aside. Will nothing do?—Aloud. Well, it must out then. To tell you the truth, ladies, which I was afraid to let you know before, lest it might endanger your lives, my wife has just now the smallpox come out upon her; do not be frightened; but pray be gone, ladies; you shall not stay here in danger of your lives; pray get you gone, ladies.
Lady Fidget	No, no, we have all had ’em.
Mrs. Squeamish	Alack, alack!
Mrs. Dainty	Come, come, we must see how it goes with her; I understand the disease.
Lady Fidget	Come!
Pinchwife	Aside. Well, there is no being too hard for women at their own weapon, lying, therefore I’ll quit the field.
	Exit.
Mrs. Squeamish	Here’s an example of jealousy!
Lady Fidget	Indeed, as the world goes, I wonder there are no more jealous, since wives are so neglected.
Mrs. Dainty	Pshaw! as the world goes, to what end should they be jealous?
Lady Fidget	Foh! ’tis a nasty world.
Mrs. Squeamish	That men of parts, great acquaintance, and quality, should take up with and spend themselves and fortunes in keeping little playhouse creatures, foh!
Lady Fidget	Nay, that women of understanding, great acquaintance, and good quality, should fall a-keeping too of little creatures, foh!
Mrs. Squeamish	Why, ’tis the men of quality’s fault; they never visit women of honour and reputation as they used to do; and have not so much as common civility for ladies of our rank, but use us with the same indifferency and ill-breeding as if we were all married to ’em.
Lady Fidget	She says true; ’tis an arrant shame women of quality should be so slighted; methinks birth—birth should go for something; I have known men admired, courted, and followed for their titles only.
Mrs. Squeamish	Ay, one would think men of honour should not love, no more than marry, out of their own rank.
Mrs. Dainty	Fy, fy, upon ’em! they are come to think cross breeding for themselves best, as well as for their dogs and horses.
Lady Fidget	They are dogs and horses for’t.
Mrs. Squeamish	One would think, if not for love, for vanity a little.
Mrs. Dainty	Nay, they do satisfy their vanity upon us sometimes; and are kind to us in their report, tell all the world they lie with us.
Lady Fidget	Damned rascals, that we should be only wronged by ’em! To report a man has had a person, when he has not had a person, is the greatest wrong in the whole world that can be done to a person.
Mrs. Squeamish	Well, ’tis an arrant shame noble persons should be so wronged and neglected.
Lady Fidget	But still ’tis an arranter shame for a noble person to neglect her own honour, and defame her own noble person with little inconsiderable fellows, foh!
Mrs. Dainty	I suppose the crime against our honour is the same with a man of quality as with another.
Lady Fidget	How! no sure, the man of quality is likest one’s husband, and therefore the fault should be the less.
Mrs. Dainty	But then the pleasure should be the less.
Lady Fidget	Fy, fy, fy, for shame, sister! whither shall we ramble? Be continent in your discourse, or I shall hate you.
Mrs. Dainty	Besides, an intrigue is so much the more notorious for the man’s quality.
Mrs. Squeamish	’Tis true that nobody takes notice of a private man, and therefore with him ’tis more secret; and the crime’s the less when ’tis not known.
Lady Fidget	You say true; i’faith, I think you are in the right on’t: ’tis not an injury to a husband, till it be an injury to our honours; so that a woman of honour loses no honour with a private person; and to say truth—
Mrs. Dainty	So, the little fellow is grown a private person—with her—Apart to Mrs. Squeamish.
Lady Fidget	But still my dear, dear honour—
	Enter Sir Jasper Fidget, Horner, and Dorilant.
Sir Jasper	Ay, my dear, dear of honour, thou hast still so much honour in thy mouth—
Horner	That she has none elsewhere. Aside.
Lady Fidget	Oh, what d’ye mean to bring in these upon us?
Mrs. Dainty	Foh! these are as bad as wits.
Mrs. Squeamish	Foh!
Lady Fidget	Let us leave the room.
Sir Jasper	Stay, stay; faith, to tell you the naked truth—
Lady Fidget	Fy, Sir Jasper! do not use that word naked.
Sir Jasper	Well, well, in short I have business at Whitehall, and cannot go to the play with you, therefore would have you go—
Lady Fidget	With those two to a play?
Sir Jasper	No, not with t’other, but with Mr. Horner; there can be no more scandal to go with him than with Mr. Tattle, or Master Limberham.
Lady Fidget	With that nasty fellow! no—no.
Sir Jasper	Nay, prithee, dear, hear me. Whispers to Lady Fidget.
Horner	Ladies—Horner and Dorilant draw near Mrs. Squeamish and Mrs. Dainty Fidget.
Mrs. Dainty	Stand off.
Mrs. Squeamish	Do not approach us.
Mrs. Dainty	You herd with the wits, you are obscenity all over.
Mrs. Squeamish	And I would as soon look upon a picture of Adam and Eve, without fig-leaves, as any of you, if I could help it; therefore keep off, and do not make us sick.
Dorilant	What a devil are these?
Horner	Why, these are pretenders to honour, as critics to wit, only by censuring others; and as every raw, peevish, out-of-humoured, affected, dull, tea-drinking, arithmetical fop, sets up for a wit by railing at men of sense, so these for honour, by railing at the court, and ladies of as great honour as quality.
Sir Jasper	Come, Mr. Horner, I must desire you to go with these ladies to the play, sir.
Horner	I, sir?
Sir Jasper	Ay, ay, come, sir.
Horner	I must beg your pardon, sir, and theirs; I will not be seen in women’s company in public again for the world.
Sir Jasper	Ha, ha, strange aversion!
Mrs. Squeamish	No, he’s for women’s company in private.
Sir Jasper	He—poor man—he—ha! ha! ha!
Mrs. Dainty	’Tis a greater shame amongst lewd fellows to be seen in virtuous women’s company, than for the women to be seen with them.
Horner	Indeed, madam, the time was I only hated virtuous women, but now I hate the other too; I beg your pardon, ladies.
Lady Fidget	You are very obliging, sir, because we would not be troubled with you.
Sir Jasper	In sober sadness, he shall go.
Dorilant	Nay, if he wo’ not, I am ready to wait upon the ladies, and I think I am the fitter man.
Sir Jasper	You sir! no, I thank you for that. Master Horner is a privileged man amongst the virtuous ladies, ’twill be a great while before you are so; he! he! he! he’s my wife’s gallant; he! he! he! No, pray withdraw, sir, for as I take it, the virtuous ladies have no business with you.
Dorilant	And I am sure he can have none with them. ’Tis strange a man can’t come amongst virtuous women now, but upon the same terms as men are admitted into the Great Turk’s seraglio. But heavens keep me from being an ombre player with ’em!—But where is Pinchwife?
	Exit.
Sir Jasper	Come, come, man; what, avoid the sweet society of womankind? that sweet, soft, gentle, tame, noble creature, woman, made for man’s companion—
Horner	So is that soft, gentle, tame, and more noble creature a spaniel, and has all their tricks; can fawn, lie down, suffer beating, and fawn the more; barks at your friends when they come to see you, makes your bed hard, gives you fleas, and the mange sometimes. And all the difference is, the spaniel’s the more faithful animal, and fawns but upon one master.
Sir Jasper	He! he! he!
Mrs. Squeamish	O the rude beast!
Mrs. Dainty	Insolent brute!
Lady Fidget	Brute! stinking, mortified, rotten French wether, to dare—
Sir Jasper	Hold, an’t please your ladyship.—For shame, Master Horner! your mother was a woman—Aside. Now shall I never reconcile ’em.—Aside to Lady Fidget. Hark you, madam, take my advice in your anger. You know you often want one to make up your drolling pack of ombre players, and you may cheat him easily; for he’s an ill gamester, and consequently loves play. Besides, you know you have but two old civil gentlemen (with stinking breaths too) to wait upon you abroad; take in the third into your service. The other are but crazy; and a lady should have a supernumerary gentleman-usher as a supernumerary coach-horse, lest sometimes you should be forced to stay at home.
Lady Fidget	But are you sure he loves play, and has money?
Sir Jasper	He loves play as much as you, and has money as much as I.
Lady Fidget	Then I am contented to make him pay for his scurrility. Money makes up in a measure all other wants in men.—Those whom we cannot make hold for gallants, we make fine. Aside.
Sir Jasper	Aside. So, so; now to mollify, wheedle him.—Aside to Horner. Master Horner, will you never keep civil company? methinks ’tis time now, since you are only fit for them. Come, come, man, you must e’en fall to visiting our wives, eating at our tables, drinking tea with our virtuous relations after dinner, dealing cards to ’em, reading plays and gazettes to ’em, picking fleas out of their smocks for ’em, collecting receipts, new songs, women, pages, and footmen for ’em.
Horner	I hope they’ll afford me better employment, sir.
Sir Jasper	He! he! he! ’tis fit you know your work before you come into your place. And since you are unprovided of a lady to flatter, and a good house to eat at, pray frequent mine, and call my wife mistress, and she shall call you gallant, according to the custom.
Horner	Who, I?
Sir Jasper	Faith, thou sha’t for my sake; come, for my sake only.
Horner	For your sake—
Sir Jasper	Come, come, here’s a gamester for you; let him be a little familiar sometimes; nay, what if a little rude? Gamesters may be rude with ladies, you know.
Lady Fidget	Yes; losing gamesters have a privilege with women.
Horner	I always thought the contrary, that the winning gamester had most privilege with women; for when you have lost your money to a man, you’ll lose anything you have, all you have, they say, and he may use you as he pleases.
Sir Jasper	He! he! he! well, win or lose, you shall have your liberty with her.
Lady Fidget	As he behaves himself; and for your sake I’ll give him admittance and freedom.
Horner	All sorts of freedom, madam?
Sir Jasper	Ay, ay, ay, all sorts of freedom thou canst take. And so go to her, begin thy new employment; wheedle her, jest with her, and be better acquainted one with another.
Horner	Aside. I think I know her already; therefore may venture with her my secret for hers. Horner and Lady Fidget whisper.
Sir Jasper	Sister cuz, I have provided an innocent playfellow for you there.
Mrs. Dainty	Who, he?
Mrs. Squeamish	There’s a playfellow, indeed!
Sir Jasper	Yes sure.—What, he is good enough to play at cards, blindman’s-buff, or the fool with, sometimes!
Mrs. Squeamish	Foh! we’ll have no such playfellows.
Mrs. Dainty	No, sir; you shan’t choose playfellows for us, we thank you.
Sir Jasper	Nay, pray hear me. Whispering to them.
Lady Fidget	But, poor gentleman, could you be so generous, so truly a man of honour, as for the sakes of us women of honour, to cause yourself to be reported no man? No man! and to suffer yourself the greatest shame that could fall upon a man, that none might fall upon us women by your conversation? but, indeed, sir, as perfectly, perfectly the same man as before your going into France, sir? as perfectly, perfectly, sir?
Horner	As perfectly, perfectly, madam. Nay, I scorn you should take my word; I desire to be tried only, madam.
Lady Fidget	Well, that’s spoken again like a man of honour: all men of honour desire to come to the test. But, indeed, generally you men report such things of yourselves, one does not know how or whom to believe; and it is come to that pass, we dare not take your words no more than your tailor’s, without some staid servant of yours be bound with you. But I have so strong a faith in your honour, dear, dear, noble sir, that I’d forfeit mine for yours, at any time, dear sir.
Horner	No, madam, you should not need to forfeit it for me; I have given you security already to save you harmless, my late reputation being so well known in the world, madam.
Lady Fidget	But if upon any future falling-out, or upon a suspicion of my taking the trust out of your hands, to employ some other, you yourself should betray your trust, dear sir? I mean, if you’ll give me leave to speak obscenely, you might tell, dear sir.
Horner	If I did, nobody would believe me. The reputation of impotency is as hardly recovered again in the world as that of cowardice, dear madam.
Lady Fidget	Nay, then, as one may say, you may do your worst, dear, dear sir.
Sir Jasper	Come, is your ladyship reconciled to him yet? have you agreed on matters? for I must be gone to Whitehall.
Lady Fidget	Why, indeed, Sir Jasper, Master Horner is a thousand, thousand times a better man than I thought him. Cousin Squeamish, sister Dainty, I can name him now. Truly, not long ago, you know, I thought his very name obscenity; and I would as soon have lain with him as have named him.
Sir Jasper	Very likely, poor madam.
Mrs. Dainty	I believe it.
Mrs. Squeamish	No doubt on’t.
Sir Jasper	Well, well—that your ladyship is as virtuous as any she, I know, and him all the town knows—he! he! he! therefore now you like him, get you gone to your business together, go, go to your business, I say, pleasure, whilst I go to my pleasure, business.
Lady Fidget	Come, then, dear gallant.
Horner	Come away, my dearest mistress.
Sir Jasper	So, so; why, ’tis as I’d have it.
	Exit.
Horner	And as I’d have it.
Lady Fidget	Who for his business from his wife will run, Takes the best care to have her business done.
	Exeunt.

Act III

Scene I

A room in Pinchwife’s house.

	Enter Alithea* and Mrs. Pinchwife.*
Alithea	Sister, what ails you? you are grown melancholy.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Would it not make anyone melancholy to see you go every day fluttering about abroad, whilst I must stay at home like a poor lonely sullen bird in a cage?
Alithea	Ay, sister; but you came young, and just from the nest to your cage: so that I thought you liked it, and could be as cheerful in’t as others that took their flight themselves early, and are hopping abroad in the open air.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, I confess I was quiet enough till my husband told me what pure lives the London ladies live abroad, with their dancing, meetings, and junketings, and dressed every day in their best gowns; and I warrant you, play at ninepins every day of the week, so they do.
	Enter Pinchwife.
Pinchwife	Come, what’s here to do? you are putting the town-pleasures in her head, and setting her a-longing.
Alithea	Yes, after ninepins. You suffer none to give her those longings you mean but yourself.
Pinchwife	I tell her of the vanities of the town like a confessor.
Alithea	A confessor! just such a confessor as he that, by forbidding a silly ostler to grease the horse’s teeth, taught him to do’t.
Pinchwife	Come, Mrs. Flippant, good precepts are lost when bad examples are still before us: the liberty you take abroad makes her hanker after it, and out of humour at home. Poor wretch! she desired not to come to London; I would bring her.
Alithea	Very well.
Pinchwife	She has been this week in town, and never desired till this afternoon to go abroad.
Alithea	Was she not at a play yesterday?
Pinchwife	Yes; but she ne’er asked me; I was myself the cause of her going.
Alithea	Then if she ask you again, you are the cause of her asking, and not my example.
Pinchwife	Well, tomorrow night I shall be rid of you; and the next day, before ’tis light, she and I’ll be rid of the town, and my dreadful apprehensions.—Come, be not melancholy; for thou sha’t go into the country after tomorrow, dearest.
Alithea	Great comfort!
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pish! what d’ye tell me of the country for?
Pinchwife	How’s this! what, pish at the country?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Let me alone; I am not well.
Pinchwife	O, if that be all—what ails my dearest?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Truly, I don’t know: but I have not been well since you told me there was a gallant at the play in love with me.
Pinchwife	Ha!—
Alithea	That’s by my example too!
Pinchwife	Nay, if you are not well, but are so concerned, because a lewd fellow chanced to lie, and say he liked you, you’ll make me sick too.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Of what sickness?
Pinchwife	O, of that which is worse than the plague, jealousy.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pish, you jeer! I’m sure there’s no such disease in our receipt-book at home.
Pinchwife	No, thou never met’st with it, poor innocent.—Well, if thou cuckold me, ’twill be my own fault—for cuckolds and bastards are generally makers of their own fortune. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Well, but pray, bud, let’s go to a play tonight.
Pinchwife	’Tis just done, she comes from it. But why are you so eager to see a play?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Faith, dear, not that I care one pin for their talk there; but I like to look upon the playermen, and would see, if I could, the gallant you say loves me: that’s all, dear bud.
Pinchwife	Is that all, dear bud?
Alithea	This proceeds from my example!
Mrs. Pinchwife	But if the play be done, let’s go abroad, however, dear bud.
Pinchwife	Come have a little patience and thou shalt go into the country on Friday.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Therefore I would see first some sights to tell my neighbours of. Nay, I will go abroad, that’s once.
Alithea	I’m the cause of this desire too!
Pinchwife	But now I think on’t, who, who was the cause of Horner’s coming to my lodgings today? That was you.
Alithea	No, you, because you would not let him see your handsome wife out of your lodging.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Why, O Lord! did the gentleman come hither to see me indeed?
Pinchwife	No, no.—You are not the cause of that damned question too, Mistress Alithea?—Aside. Well, she’s in the right of it. He is in love with my wife—and comes after her—’tis so—but I’ll nip his love in the bud; lest he should follow us into the country, and break his chariot-wheel near our house, on purpose for an excuse to come to’t. But I think I know the town.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Come, pray, bud, let’s go abroad before ’tis late; for I will go, that’s flat and plain.
Pinchwife	Aside. So! the obstinacy already of the town-wife; and I must, whilst she’s here, humour her like one.—Aloud. Sister, how shall we do, that she may not be seen, or known?
Alithea	Let her put on her mask.
Pinchwife	Pshaw! a mask makes people but the more inquisitive, and is as ridiculous a disguise as a stage-beard: her shape, stature, habit will be known. And if we should meet with Horner, he would be sure to take acquaintance with us, must wish her joy, kiss her, talk to her, leer upon her, and the devil and all. No, I’ll not use her to a mask, ’tis dangerous; for masks have made more cuckolds than the best faces that ever were known.
Alithea	How will you do then?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, shall we go? The Exchange will be shut, and I have a mind to see that.
Pinchwife	So—I have it—I’ll dress her up in the suit we are to carry down to her brother, little Sir James; nay, I understand the town-tricks. Come, let’s go dress her. A mask! no—a woman masked, like a covered dish, gives a man curiosity and appetite; when, it may be, uncovered, ’twould turn his stomach: no, no.
Alithea	Indeed your comparison is something a greasy one: but I had a gentle gallant used to say, A beauty masked, like the sun in eclipse, gathers together more gazers than if it shined out.
	Exeunt.

Scene II

The New Exchange.

	Enter Horner, Harcourt, and Dorilant.
Dorilant	Engaged to women, and not sup with us!
Horner	Ay, a pox on ’em all!
Harcourt	You were much a more reasonable man in the morning, and had as noble resolutions against ’em, as a widower of a week’s liberty.
Dorilant	Did I ever think to see you keep company with women in vain?
Horner	In vain: no—’tis since I can’t love ’em, to be revenged on ’em.
Harcourt	Now your sting is gone, you looked in the box amongst all those women like a drone in the hive; all upon you, shoved and ill-used by ’em all, and thrust from one side to t’other.
Dorilant	Yet he must be buzzing amongst ’em still, like other beetle-headed liquorish drones. Avoid ’em, and hate ’em, as they hate you.
Horner	Because I do hate ’em, and would hate ’em yet more, I’ll frequent ’em. You may see by marriage, nothing makes a man hate a woman more than her constant conversation. In short, I converse with ’em, as you do with rich fools, to laugh at ’em and use ’em ill.
Dorilant	But I would no more sup with women, unless I could lie with ’em, than sup with a rich coxcomb, unless I could cheat him.
Horner	Yes, I have known thee sup with a fool for his drinking; if he could set out your hand that way only, you were satisfied, and if he were a wine-swallowing mouth, ’twas enough.
Harcourt	Yes, a man drinks often with a fool, as he tosses with a marker, only to keep his hand in use. But do the ladies drink?
Horner	Yes, sir; and I shall have the pleasure at least of laying ’em flat with a bottle, and bring as much scandal that way upon ’em as formerly t’other.
Harcourt	Perhaps you may prove as weak a brother among ’em that way as t’other.
Dorilant	Foh! drinking with women is as unnatural as scolding with ’em. But ’tis a pleasure of decayed fornicators, and the basest way of quenching love.
Harcourt	Nay, ’tis drowning love, instead of quenching it. But leave us for civil women too!
Dorilant	Ay, when he can’t be the better for ’em. We hardly pardon a man that leaves his friend for a wench, and that’s a pretty lawful call.
Horner	Faith, I would not leave you for ’em, if they would not drink.
Dorilant	Who would disappoint his company at Lewis’s for a gossiping?
Harcourt	Foh! Wine and women, good apart, together are as nauseous as sack and sugar. But hark you, sir, before you go, a little of your advice; an old maimed general, when unfit for action, is fittest for counsel. I have other designs upon women than eating and drinking with them; I am in love with Sparkish’s mistress, whom he is to marry tomorrow: now how shall I get her?
	Enter Sparkish, looking about.
Horner	Why, here comes one will help you to her.
Harcourt	He! he, I tell you, is my rival, and will hinder my love.
Horner	No; a foolish rival and a jealous husband assist their rival’s designs; for they are sure to make their women hate them, which is the first step to their love for another man.
Harcourt	But I cannot come near his mistress but in his company.
Horner	Still the better for you; for fools are most easily cheated when they themselves are accessories: and he is to be bubbled of his mistress as of his money, the common mistress, by keeping him company.
Sparkish	Who is that that is to be bubbled? Faith, let me snack; I han’t met with a bubble since Christmas. ’Gad, I think bubbles are like their brother woodcocks, go out with the cold weather.
Harcourt	A pox! he did not hear all, I hope. Apart to Horner.
Sparkish	Come, you bubbling rogues you, where do we sup?—Oh, Harcourt, my mistress tells me you have been making fierce love to her all the play long: ha! ha!—But I—
Harcourt	I make love to her!
Sparkish	Nay, I forgive thee, for I think I know thee, and I know her; but I am sure I know myself.
Harcourt	Did she tell you so? I see all women are like these of the Exchange; who, to enhance the prize of their commodities, report to their fond customers offers which were never made ’em.
Horner	Ay, women are apt to tell before the intrigue, as men after it, and so show themselves the vainer sex. But hast thou a mistress, Sparkish? ’Tis as hard for me to believe it, as that thou ever hadst a bubble, as you bragged just now.
Sparkish	O, your servant, sir: are you at your raillery, sir? But we are some of us beforehand with you today at the play. The wits were something bold with you, sir; did you not hear us laugh?
Horner	Yes; but I thought you had gone to plays, to laugh at the poet’s wit, not at your own.
Sparkish	Your servant, sir: no, I thank you. ’Gad I go to a play as to a country treat; I carry my own wine to one, and my own wit to t’other, or else I’m sure I should not be merry at either. And the reason why we are so often louder than the players, is, because we think we speak more wit, and so become the poet’s rivals in his audience: for to tell you the truth, we hate the silly rogues; nay, so much, that we find fault even with their bawdy upon the stage, whilst we talk nothing else in the pit as loud.
Horner	But why shouldst thou hate the silly poets? Thou hast too much wit to be one; and they, like whores, are only hated by each other: and thou dost scorn writing, I’m sure.
Sparkish	Yes; I’d have you to know I scorn writing: but women, women, that make men do all foolish things, make ’em write songs too. Everybody does it. ’Tis even as common with lovers, as playing with fans; and you can no more help rhyming to your Phillis, than drinking to your Phillis.
Harcourt	Nay, poetry in love is no more to be avoided than jealousy.
Dorilant	But the poets damned your songs, did they?
Sparkish	Damn the poets! they have turned ’em into burlesque, as they call it. That burlesque is a hocus-pocus trick they have got, which, by the virtue of Hictius doctius topsy turvy, they make a wise and witty man in the world, a fool upon the stage you know not how: and ’tis therefore I hate ’em too, for I know not but it may be my own case; for they’ll put a man into a play for looking asquint. Their predecessors were contented to make serving-men only their stage-fools: but these rogues must have gentlemen, with a pox to ’em, nay, knights; and, indeed, you shall hardly see a fool upon the stage but he’s a knight. And to tell you the truth, they have kept me these six years from being a knight in earnest, for fear of being knighted in a play, and dubbed a fool.
Dorilant	Blame ’em not, they must follow their copy, the age.
Harcourt	But why shouldst thou be afraid of being in a play, who expose yourself every day in the playhouses, and at public places?
Horner	’Tis but being on the stage, instead of standing on a bench in the pit.
Dorilant	Don’t you give money to painters to draw you like? and are you afraid of your pictures at length in a playhouse, where all your mistresses may see you?
Sparkish	A pox! painters don’t draw the smallpox or pimples in one’s face. Come, damn all your silly authors whatever, all books and booksellers, by the world; and all readers, courteous or uncourteous!
Harcourt	But who comes here, Sparkish?
	Enter Pinchwife* and Mrs. Pinchwife in man’s clothes, Alithea and Lucy.*
Sparkish	Oh, hide me! There’s my mistress too. Sparkish hides himself behind Harcourt.
Harcourt	She sees you.
Sparkish	But I will not see her. ’Tis time to go to Whitehall, and I must not fail the drawing-room.
Harcourt	Pray, first carry me, and reconcile me to her.
Sparkish	Another time. Faith, the king will have supped.
Harcourt	Not with the worse stomach for thy absence. Thou art one of those fools that think their attendance at the king’s meals as necessary as his physicians, when you are more troublesome to him than his doctors or his dogs.
Sparkish	Pshaw! I know my interest, sir. Prithee hide me.
Horner	Your servant, Pinchwife.—What, he knows us not!
Pinchwife	Come along. To his Wife* aside.*
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray, have you any ballads? give me sixpenny worth.
Bookseller	We have no ballads.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Then give me Covent Garden Drollery, and a play or two—Oh, here’s Tarugo’s Wiles, and The Slighted Maiden;7 I’ll have them.
Pinchwife	No; plays are not for your reading. Come along; will you discover yourself? Apart to her.
Horner	Who is that pretty youth with him, Sparkish?
Sparkish	I believe his wife’s brother, because he’s something like her: but I never saw her but once.
Horner	Extremely handsome; I have seen a face like it too. Let us follow ’em.
	Exeunt Pinchwife, Mrs. Pinchwife, Pinchwife, Alithea, and Lucy; Horner* and Dorilant following them.*
Harcourt	Come, Sparkish, your mistress saw you, and will be angry you go not to her. Besides, I would fain be reconciled to her, which none but you can do, dear friend.
Sparkish	Well, that’s a better reason, dear friend. I would not go near her now for hers or my own sake; but I can deny you nothing: for though I have known thee a great while, never go, if I do not love thee as well as a new acquaintance.
Harcourt	I am obliged to you indeed, dear friend. I would be well with her, only to be well with thee still; for these ties to wives usually dissolve all ties to friends. I would be contented she should enjoy you a-nights, but I would have you to myself a-days as I have had, dear friend.
Sparkish	And thou shalt enjoy me a-days, dear, dear friend, never stir: and I’ll be divorced from her, sooner than from thee. Come along.
Harcourt	Aside. So, we are hard put to’t, when we make our rival our procurer; but neither she nor her brother would let me come near her now. When all’s done, a rival is the best cloak to steal to a mistress under, without suspicion; and when we have once got to her as we desire, we throw him off like other cloaks.
	Exit Sparkish, Harcourt* following him.*
	Reenter Pinchwife* and Mrs. Pinchwife.*
Pinchwife	To Alithea. Sister, if you will not go, we must leave you.—Aside. The fool her gallant and she will muster up all the young saunterers of this place, and they will leave their dear sempstresses to follow us. What a swarm of cuckolds and cuckold-makers are here!—Come, let’s be gone, Mistress Margery.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Don’t you believe that; I han’t half my bellyfull of sights yet.
Pinchwife	Then walk this way.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Lord, what a power of brave signs are here! stay—the Bull’s-Head, the Ram’s-Head, and the Stag’s-Head, dear—
Pinchwife	Nay, if every husband’s proper sign here were visible, they would be all alike.
Mrs. Pinchwife	What d’ye mean by that, bud?
Pinchwife	’Tis no matter—no matter, bud.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Pray tell me: nay, I will know.
Pinchwife	They would be all Bulls, Stags, and Rams-heads.
	Exeunt Pinchwife* and Mrs. Pinchwife.*
	Reenter Sparkish, Harcourt, Alithea, and Lucy, at the other side.
Sparkish	Come, dear madam, for my sake you shall be reconciled to him.
Alithea	For your sake I hate him.
Harcourt	That’s something too cruel, madam, to hate me for his sake.
Sparkish	Ay indeed, madam, too, too cruel to me, to hate my friend for my sake.
Alithea	I hate him because he is your enemy; and you ought to hate him too, for making love to me, if you love me.
Sparkish	That’s a good one! I hate a man for loving you! If he did love you, ’tis but what he can’t help; and ’tis your fault, not his, if he admires you. I hate a man for being of my opinion! I’ll n’er do’t, by the world.
Alithea	Is it for your honour, or mine, to suffer a man to make love to me, who am to marry you tomorrow?
Sparkish	Is it for your honour, or mine, to have me jealous? That he makes love to you, is a sign you are handsome; and that I am not jealous, is a sign you are virtuous. That I think is for your honour.
Alithea	But ’tis your honour too I am concerned for.
Harcourt	But why, dearest madam, will you be more concerned for his honour than he is himself? Let his honour alone, for my sake and his. He! he has no honour—
Sparkish	How’s that?
Harcourt	But what my dear friend can guard himself.
Sparkish	O ho—that’s right again.
Harcourt	Your care of his honour argues his neglect of it, which is no honour to my dear friend here. Therefore once more, let his honour go which way it will, dear madam.
Sparkish	Ay, ay; were it for my honour to marry a woman whose virtue I suspected, and could not trust her in a friend’s hands?
Alithea	Are you not afraid to lose me?
Harcourt	He afraid to lose you, madam! No, no—you may see how the most estimable and most glorious creature in the world is valued by him. Will you not see it?
Sparkish	Right, honest Frank, I have that noble value for her that I cannot be jealous of her.
Alithea	You mistake him. He means, you care not for me, nor who has me.
Sparkish	Lord, madam, I see you are jealous! Will you wrest a poor man’s meaning from his words?
Alithea	You astonish me, sir, with your want of jealousy.
Sparkish	And you make me giddy, madam, with your jealousy and fears, and virtue and honour. ’Gad, I see virtue makes a woman as troublesome as a little reading or learning.
Alithea	Monstrous!
Lucy	Well, to see what easy husbands these women of quality can meet with! a poor chambermaid can never have such ladylike luck. Besides, he’s thrown away upon her. She’ll make no use of her fortune, her blessing, none to a gentleman, for a pure cuckold; for it requires good breeding to be a cuckold. Aside.
Alithea	I tell you then plainly, he pursues me to marry me.
Sparkish	Pshaw!
Harcourt	Come, madam, you see you strive in vain to make him jealous of me. My dear friend is the kindest creature in the world to me.
Sparkish	Poor fellow!
Harcourt	But his kindness only is not enough for me, without your favour, your good opinion, dear madam: ’tis that must perfect my happiness. Good gentleman, he believes all I say: would you would do so! Jealous of me! I would not wrong him nor you for the world.
Sparkish	Look you there. Hear him, hear him, and do not walk away so. Alithea walks carelessly to and fro.
Harcourt	I love you, madam, so—
Sparkish	How’s that? Nay, now you begin to go too far indeed.
Harcourt	So much, I confess, I say, I love you, that I would not have you miserable, and cast yourself away upon so unworthy and inconsiderable a thing as what you see here. Clapping his hand on his breast, points at Sparkish.
Sparkish	No, faith, I believe thou wouldst not: now his meaning is plain; but I knew before thou wouldst not wrong me, nor her.
Harcourt	No, no, Heavens forbid the glory of her sex should fall so low, as into the embraces of such a contemptible wretch, the least of mankind—my friend here—I injure him! Embracing Sparkish.
Alithea	Very well.
Sparkish	No, no, dear friend, I knew it.—Madam, you see he will rather wrong himself than me, in giving himself such names.
Alithea	Do not you understand him yet?
Sparkish	Yes: how modestly he speaks of himself, poor fellow!
Alithea	Methinks he speaks impudently of yourself, since—before yourself too; insomuch that I can no longer suffer his scurrilous abusiveness to you, no more than his love to me. Offers to go.
Sparkish	Nay, nay, madam, pray stay—his love to you! Lord, madam, has he not spoke yet plain enough?
Alithea	Yes, indeed, I should think so.
Sparkish	Well then, by the world, a man can’t speak civilly to a woman now, but presently she says, he makes love to her. Nay, madam, you shall stay, with your pardon, since you have not yet understood him, till he has made an éclaircissement of his love to you, that is, what kind of love it is. Answer to thy catechism, friend; do you love my mistress here?
Harcourt	Yes, I wish she would not doubt it.
Sparkish	But how do you love her?
Harcourt	With all my soul.
Alithea	I thank him, methinks he speaks plain enough now.
Sparkish	To Alithea. You are out still.—But with what kind of love, Harcourt?
Harcourt	With the best and the truest love in the world.
Sparkish	Look you there then, that is with no matrimonial love, I’m sure.
Alithea	How’s that? do you say matrimonial love is not best?
Sparkish	’Gad, I went too far ere I was aware. But speak for thyself, Harcourt, you said you would not wrong me nor her.
Harcourt	No, so, madam, e’en take him for Heaven’s sake.
Sparkish	Look you there, madam.
Harcourt	Who should in all justice be yours, he that loves you most. Claps his hand on his breast.
Alithea	Look you there, Mr. Sparkish, who’s that?
Sparkish	Who should it be?—Go on, Harcourt.
Harcourt	Who loves you more than women titles, or fortune fools. Points at Sparkish.
Sparkish	Look you there, he means me still, for he points at me.
Alithea	Ridiculous!
Harcourt	Who can only match your faith and constancy in love.
Sparkish	Ay.
Harcourt	Who knows, if it be possible, how to value so much beauty and virtue.
Sparkish	Ay.
Harcourt	Whose love can no more be equalled in the world, than that heavenly form of yours.
Sparkish	No.
Harcourt	Who could no more suffer a rival, than your absence, and yet could no more suspect your virtue, than his own constancy in his love to you.
Sparkish	No.
Harcourt	Who, in fine, loves you better than his eyes, that first made him love you.
Sparkish	Ay—Nay, madam, faith, you shan’t go till—
Alithea	Have a care, lest you make me stay too long.
Sparkish	But till he has saluted you; that I may be assured you are friends, after his honest advice and declaration. Come, pray, madam, be friends with him.
	Reenter Pinchwife* and Mrs. Pinchwife.*
Alithea	You must pardon me, sir, that I am not yet so obedient to you.
Pinchwife	What, invite your wife to kiss men? Monstrous! are you not ashamed? I will never forgive you.
Sparkish	Are you not ashamed, that I should have more confidence in the chastity of your family than you have? You must not teach me, I am a man of honour, sir, though I am frank and free; I am frank, sir—
Pinchwife	Very frank, sir, to share your wife with your friends.
Sparkish	He is an humble, menial friend, such as reconciles the differences of the marriage bed; you know man and wife do not always agree; I design him for that use, therefore would have him well with my wife.
Pinchwife	A menial friend!—you will get a great many menial friends, by showing your wife as you do.
Sparkish	What then? It may be I have a pleasure in’t, as I have to show fine clothes at a playhouse, the first day, and count money before poor rogues.
Pinchwife	He that shows his wife or money, will be in danger of having them borrowed sometimes.
Sparkish	I love to be envied, and would not marry a wife that I alone could love; loving alone is as dull as eating alone. Is it not a frank age? and I am a frank person; and to tell you the truth, it may be, I love to have rivals in a wife, they make her seem to a man still but as a kept mistress; and so good night, for I must to Whitehall.—Madam, I hope you are now reconciled to my friend; and so I wish you a good night, madam, and sleep if you can: for tomorrow you know I must visit you early with a canonical gentleman. Good night, dear Harcourt.
	Exit.
Harcourt	Madam, I hope you will not refuse my visit tomorrow, if it should be earlier with a canonical gentleman than Mr. Sparkish’s.
Pinchwife	This gentlewoman is yet under my care, therefore you must yet forbear your freedom with her, sir. Coming between Alithea* and Harcourt.*
Harcourt	Must, sir?
Pinchwife	Yes, sir, she is my sister.
Harcourt	’Tis well she is, sir—for I must be her servant, sir.—Madam—
Pinchwife	Come away, sister, we had been gone, if it had not been for you, and so avoided these lewd rake-hells, who seem to haunt us.
	Reenter Horner* and Dorilant.*
Horner	How now, Pinchwife!
Pinchwife	Your servant.
Horner	What! I see a little time in the country makes a man turn wild and unsociable, and only fit to converse with his horses, dogs, and his herds.
Pinchwife	I have business, sir, and must mind it; your business is pleasure, therefore you and I must go different ways.
Horner	Well, you may go on, but this pretty young gentleman—Takes hold of Mrs. Pinchwife.
Harcourt	The lady—
Dorilant	And the maid—
Horner	Shall stay with us; for I suppose their business is the same with ours, pleasure.
Pinchwife	’Sdeath, he knows her, she carries it so sillily! yet if he does not, I should be more silly to discover it first. Aside.
Alithea	Pray, let us go, sir.
Pinchwife	Come, come—
Horner	To Mrs. Pinchwife. Had you not rather stay with us?—Prithee, Pinchwife, who is this pretty young gentleman?
Pinchwife	One to whom I’m a guardian.—Aside. I wish I could keep her out of your hands.
Horner	Who is he? I never saw anything so pretty in all my life.
Pinchwife	Pshaw! do not look upon him so much, he’s a poor bashful youth, you’ll put him out of countenance.—Come away, brother. Offers to take her away.
Horner	O, your brother!
Pinchwife	Yes, my wife’s brother.—Come, come, she’ll stay supper for us.
Horner	I thought so, for he is very like her I saw you at the play with, whom I told you I was in love with.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Aside. O jeminy! is that he that was in love with me? I am glad on’t, I vow, for he’s a curious fine gentleman, and I love him already, too.—To Pinchwife. Is this he, bud?
Pinchwife	Come away, come away. To his Wife.
Horner	Why, what haste are you in? why won’t you let me talk with him?
Pinchwife	Because you’ll debauch him; he’s yet young and innocent, and I would not have him debauched for anything in the world.—Aside. How she gazes on him! the devil!
Horner	Harcourt, Dorilant, look you here, this is the likeness of that dowdy he told us of, his wife; did you ever see a lovelier creature? The rogue has reason to be jealous of his wife, since she is like him, for she would make all that see her in love with her.
Harcourt	And, as I remember now, she is as like him here as can be.
Dorilant	She is indeed very pretty, if she be like him.
Horner	Very pretty? a very pretty commendation!—she is a glorious creature, beautiful beyond all things I ever beheld.
Pinchwife	So, so.
Harcourt	More beautiful than a poet’s first mistress of imagination.
Horner	Or another man’s last mistress of flesh and blood.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Nay, now you jeer, sir; pray don’t jeer me.
Pinchwife	Come, come.—Aside. By Heavens, she’ll discover herself!
Horner	I speak of your sister, sir.
Pinchwife	Ay, but saying she was handsome, if like him, made him blush.—Aside. I am upon a rack!
Horner	Methinks he is so handsome he should not be a man.
Pinchwife	Aside. O, there ’tis out! he has discovered her! I am not able to suffer any longer.—To his Wife. Come, come away, I say.
Horner	Nay, by your leave, sir, he shall not go yet.—Aside to them. Harcourt, Dorilant, let us torment this jealous rogue a little.
Harcourt and Dorilant	How?
Horner	I’ll show you.
Pinchwife	Come, pray let him go, I cannot stay fooling any longer; I tell you his sister stays supper for us.
Horner	Does she? Come then, we’ll all go to sup with he and thee.
Pinchwife	No, now I think on’t, having stayed so long for us, I warrant she’s gone to bed.—Aside. I wish she and I were well out of their hands.—To his Wife. Come, I must rise early tomorrow, come.
Horner	Well then, if she be gone to bed, I wish her and you a good night. But pray, young gentleman, present my humble service to her.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Thank you heartily, sir.
Pinchwife	Aside. ’Sdeath, she will discover herself yet in spite of me—Aloud. He is something more civil to you, for your kindness to his sister, than I am, it seems.
Horner	Tell her, dear sweet little gentleman, for all your brother there, that you have revived the love I had for her at first sight in the playhouse.
Mrs. Pinchwife	But did you love her indeed, and indeed?
Pinchwife	Aside. So, so.—Aloud. Away, I say.
Horner	Nay, stay.—Yes, indeed, and indeed, pray do you tell her so, and give her this kiss from me. Kisses her.
Pinchwife	Aside. O Heavens! what do I suffer? Now ’tis too plain he knows her, and yet—
Horner	And this, and this—Kisses her again.
Mrs. Pinchwife	What do you kiss me for? I am no woman.
Pinchwife	Aside. So, there, ’tis out.—Aloud. Come, I cannot, nor will stay any longer.
Horner	Nay, they shall send your lady a kiss too. Here, Harcourt, Dorilant, will you not? They kiss her.
Pinchwife	Aside. How! do I suffer this? Was I not accusing another just now for this rascally patience, in permitting his wife to be kissed before his face? Ten thousand ulcers gnaw away their lips.—Aloud. Come, come.
Horner	Good night, dear little gentleman; madam, good night: farewell, Pinchwife.—Apart to Harcourt* and Dorilant.* Did not I tell you I would raise his jealous gall?
	Exeunt Horner, Harcourt* and Dorilant.*
Pinchwife	So, they are gone at last; stay, let me see first if the coach be at this door.
	Exit.
	Reenter Horner, Harcourt, and Dorilant.
Horner	What, not gone yet? Will you be sure to do as I desired you, sweet sir?
Mrs. Pinchwife	Sweet sir, but what will you give me then?
Horner	Anything. Come away into the next walk.
	Exit, haling away Mrs. Pinchwife.
Alithea	Hold! hold! what d’ye do?
Lucy	Stay, stay, hold—
Harcourt	Hold, madam, hold, let him present him—he’ll come presently; nay, I will never let you go till you answer my question.
Lucy	For God’s sake, sir, I must follow ’em. Alithea and Lucy, struggling with Harcourt and Dorilant.
Dorilant	No, I have something to present you with too, you shan’t follow them.
	Reenter Pinchwife.
Pinchwife	Where?—how—what’s become of?—gone!—whither?
Lucy	He’s only gone with the gentleman, who will give him something, an’t please your worship.
Pinchwife	Something!—give him something, with a pox!—where are they?
Alithea	In the next walk only, brother.
Pinchwife	Only, only! where, where?
	Exit and returns presently, then goes out again.
Harcourt	What’s the matter with him? why so much concerned? But, dearest madam—
Alithea	Pray let me go, sir; I have said and suffered enough already.
Harcourt	Then you will not look upon, nor pity, my sufferings?
Alithea	To look upon ’em, when I cannot help ’em, were cruelty, not pity; therefore, I will never see you more.
Harcourt	Let me then, madam, have my privilege of a banished lover, complaining or railing, and giving you but a farewell reason why, if you cannot condescend to marry me, you should not take that wretch, my rival.
Alithea	He only, not you, since my honour is engaged so far to him, can give me a reason why I should not marry him; but if he be true, and what I think him to me, I must be so to him. Your servant, sir.
Harcourt	Have women only constancy when ’tis a vice, and are, like Fortune, only true to fools?
Dorilant	Thou sha’t not stir, thou robust creature; you see I can deal with you, therefore you should stay the rather, and be kind. To Lucy, who struggles to get from him.
	Reenter Pinchwife.
Pinchwife	Gone, gone, not to be found! quite gone! ten thousand plagues go with ’em! Which way went they?
Alithea	But into t’other walk, brother.
Lucy	Their business will be done presently sure, an’t please your worship; it can’t be long in doing, I’m sure on’t.
Alithea	Are they not there?
Pinchwife	No, you know where they are, you infamous wretch, eternal shame of your family, which you do not dishonour enough yourself you think, but you must help her to do it too, thou legion of bawds!
Alithea	Good brother—
Pinchwife	Damned, damned sister!
Alithea	Look you here, she’s coming.
	Reenter Mrs. Pinchwife* running, with her hat full of oranges and dried fruit under her arm, Horner following.*
Mrs. Pinchwife	O dear bud, look you here what I have got, see!
Pinchwife	And what I have got here too, which you can’t see! Aside, rubbing his forehead.
Mrs. Pinchwife	The fine gentleman has given me better things yet.
Pinchwife	Has he so?—Aside. Out of breath and coloured!—I must hold yet.
Horner	I have only given your little brother an orange, sir.
Pinchwife	To Horner. Thank you, sir.—Aside. You have only squeezed my orange, I suppose, and given it me again; yet I must have a city patience.—To his Wife. Come, come away.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Stay, till I have put up my fine things, bud.
	Enter Sir Jasper Fidget.
Sir Jasper	O, Master Horner, come, come, the ladies stay for you; your mistress, my wife, wonders you make not more haste to her.
Horner	I have stayed this half hour for you here, and ’tis your fault I am not now with your wife.
Sir Jasper	But, pray, don’t let her know so much; the truth on’t is, I was advancing a certain project to his majesty about—I’ll tell you.
Horner	No, let’s go, and hear it at your house. Good night, sweet little gentleman; one kiss more, you’ll remember me now, I hope. Kisses her.
Dorilant	What, Sir Jasper, will you separate friends? He promised to sup with us, and if you take him to your house, you’ll be in danger of our company too.
Sir Jasper	Alas! gentlemen, my house is not fit for you; there are none but civil women there, which are not for your turn. He, you know, can bear with the society of civil women now, ha! ha! ha! besides, he’s one of my family—he’s—he! he! he!
Dorilant	What is he?
Sir Jasper	Faith, my eunuch, since you’ll have it; he! he! he!
	Exeunt Sir Jasper Fidget* and Horner.*
Dorilant	I rather wish thou wert his or my cuckold. Harcourt, what a good cuckold is lost there for want of a man to make him one? Thee and I cannot have Horner’s privilege, who can make use of it.
Harcourt	Ay, to poor Horner ’tis like coming to an estate at threescore, when a man can’t be the better for’t.
Pinchwife	Come.
Mrs. Pinchwife	Presently, bud.
Dorilant	Come, let us go too.—To Alithea. Madam, your servant.—To Lucy. Good night, strapper.
Harcourt	Madam, though you will not let me have a good day or night, I wish you one; but dare not name the other half of my wish.
Alithea	Good night, sir, forever.
Mrs. Pinchwife	I don’t know where to put this here, dear bud, you shall eat it; nay, you shall have part of the fine gentleman’s good things, or treat, as you call it, when we come home.
Pinchwife	Indeed, I deserve it, since I furnished the best part of it. Strikes away the orange. The gallant treats presents, and gives the ball; But ’tis the absent cuckold pays for all.
	Exeunt.