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me leave first to ask a question or two. What is covered that my father was now actually under

this honourable lady's name?

Atall. Faith, I don't know.
Cle. What are her parents?
Atall. I can't tell.

Cle. What fortune has she?
Atall. I don't know.

Cle. Where does she live?
Atall. I can't tell.

Cle. A very concise account of the person you design to marry! Pray, sir, what is it you do know of her ?

bonds to marry me to another woman ; so, faith, I even told her my name was Freeman, a Gloucestershire gentleman, of a good estate, just come to town about a chancery suit. Besides, I was unwilling any accident should let my father know of my being yet in England, lest he should find me out, and force me to marry the woman I never saw (for which, you know, he commanded me home) before I have time to prevent it.

Cle. Well, but could you not learn the lady's name all this while?

Cle. What, then, you are quite off with the lady, I suppose, that you made an acquaintance with in the Park last week?

Atall. That I'll tell you. Coming yesterday Atall. No, faith, she was inexorable to all infrom Greenwich by water, I overtook a pair of treaties; only told me in general terms, that if oars, whose lovely freight was one single lady, what I vowed to her was sincere, she would give and a fellow in a handsome livery in the stern. me a proof in a few days what hazards she would When I came up, I had at first resolved to use run to requite my services; so, after having told the privilege of the element, and bait her with her where she might hear of me, I saw her into waterman's wit, till I came to the bridge; but, a chair, pressed her by the cold rosy fingers, as soon as she saw me, she very prudently pre- | kissed them warm, and parted. vented my design; and, as I passed, bowed to me with an humble blush, that spoke at once such sense, so just a fear, and modesty, as put the loosest of my thoughts to rout. And, when she found her fears had moved me into manners, the cautious gloom, that sat upon her beauties, disappeared; her sparkling eyes resumed their native fire; she looked, she smiled, she talked, | while her diffusive charms new fired my heart, and gave my soul a softness it never felt before. To be brief, her conversation was as charming as her person, both easy, unconstrained, and sprightly; but, then, her limbs! O rapturous thought! The snowy down upon the wings of unfledged love had never half that softness.

Cle. Raptures, indeed! Pray, sir, how came you so well acquainted with her limbs?

Atall. No, no; not so, neither one's my Juno, all pride and beauty; but this my Venus, all life, love, and softness. Now, what I beg of thee, dear Clerimont, is this: Mrs Juno, as I told you, having done me the honour of a civil visit or two at my own lodgings, I must needs borrow thine to entertain Mrs Venus in; for, if the rival goddesses should meet and clash, you know there would be the devil to do between them.

Cle. Well, sir, my lodgings are at your service-but you must be very private and sober, I can tell you; for my landlady's a Presbyterian; if she suspects your design, you're blown up, depend upon it.

.

Cle. Faith, you must excuse me; I expect some ladies in the Park that I would not miss for an empire: but yonder's my servant, he shall conduct you.

Atall. By the most fortunate misfortune sure that ever was: for, as we were shooting the Atall. Don't fear: I'll be as careful as a guilty bridge, her boat, by the negligence of the water-conscience: but, I want immediate possession: man, running against the piles, was overset; out for I expect to hear from her every moment, jumps the footman, to take care of a single rogue, and have already directed her to send thither. and down went the poor lady to the bottom. My Prithee, come with me. boat being before her, the stream drove her, by the help of her clothes, toward me; at sight of her, I plunged in, caught her in my arms, and, with much ado, supported her till my waterman pulled in to save us. But the charming difficulty of her getting into the boat, gave me a transport that all the wide water in the Thames had not power to cool; for, sir, while I was giving her a lift into the boat, I found the floating of her clothes had left her lovely limbs beneath as bare as a new-born Venus rising from the sea.

Cle. What an impudent happiness art thou capable of!

Atall. When she was a little recovered from her fright, she began to enquire my name, abode, and circumstances, that she might know to whom she owed her life and preservation. Now, to tell you the truth, I durst not trust her with my real name, lest she should from thence have dis

Atall. Very good! that will do as well, then. I'll send my man along with him to expect her commands, and call me if she sends: and, in the mean time, I'll e'en go home to my own lodgings; for, to tell you the truth, I expect a small message there from my goddess imperial. And I am not so much in love with my new bird in the bush, as to let t'other fly out of my hand for her.

Cle. And, pray, sir, what name does your goddess imperial, as you call her, know you by?

Atall. O, sir, with her I pass for a man of arms, and am called colonel Standfast; with my new face, John Freeman of Flatland-Hall, esq. But time flies: I must leave you.

Cle. Well, dear Atall, I'm yours-Good luck

to you! [Exit ATALL.]-What a happy fellow is this, that owes his success with the women purely to his inconstancy! Here comes another, too, almost as happy as he, a fellow that's wise enough to be but half in love, and make his whole life a studied idleness.

Enter CARELESS.

So, Careless! you're constant, 1 see, to your morning's saunter. -Well, how stand matters? -I hear strange things of thee; that, after having railed at marriage all thy life, thou hast resolved to fall into the noose at last.

Care. I don't see any great terror in the noose, as you call it, when a man's weary of liberty: the liberty of playing the fool, when one's turned of thirty, is not of much value.

Cle. Hey-day! Then, you begin to have nothing in your head now, but settlements, children, and the main chance!

Care. Even so, faith! but in hopes to come at them, too, I am forced very often to make my way through pills, elixirs, bolus's, ptisans, and gallipots.

Cle. What, is your mistress an apothecary's widow?

Care. No, but she is an apothecary's shop, and keeps as many drugs in her bed-chamber; she has her physic for every hour of the day and night--for 'tis vulgar, she says, to be a moment in rude and perfect health. Her bed lined with poppies; the black boys at the feet, that the healthy employ to bear flowers in their arms, she loads with diascordium, and other sleepy potions: her sweet bags, instead of the common and offensive smells of musk and amber, breathe nothing but the more modish and salubrious scents of hartshorn, rue, and assafoetida.

Cle. Why, at this rate, she's only fit to be the consort of Hippocrates. But, pray, what other charms has this extraordinary lady?

Care. She has one, Tom, that a man may relish without being so deep a physician. Cle. What's that?

Care. Why, two thousand pounds a year. Cle. No vulgar beauty, I confess, sir. But canst thou, for any consideration, throw thyself into this hospital, this box of physic, and lie all night like leaf-gold upon a pill?

Care. O, dear sir, this is not half the evil; her humour is as fantastic as her diet; nothing that is English must come near her; all her delight is in foreign impertinencies: her rooms are all of Japan or Persia, her dress Indian, and her equipage are all monsters: the coachman came over with his horses, both from Russia, Flanders are too common; the rest of her trim are a motley crowd of blacks, tawny, olives, feulamots, and pale blues: in short, she's for any thing that comes from beyond sea; her greatest monsters are those of her own coun

try; and she's in love with nothing o' this side the line, but the apothecaries.

Cle. Apothecaries quotha! why your fine lady, for aught I see, is a perfect dose of folly and physic; in a month's time she'll grow like an antimonial cup, and a kiss will be able to work with you.

Care. But to prevent that, Tom, I design, upon the wedding-day, to break all her gallipots, kick the doctor down stairs, and force her, instead of physic, to take a hearty meal of a swinging rump of boiled beef and carrots; and so 'faith I have told her.

Cle. That's something familiar: are you so near man and wife?

Care. O nearer; for I sometimes plague her till she hates the very sight of me.

Cle. Ha, ha! very good! So, being a very troublesome lover, you pretend to cure her of her physic by a counter poison.

Care. Right; I intend to fee a doctor to prescribe to her an hour of my conversation to be taken every night and morning; and this to be continued till her fever of aversion's over. Cle. An admirable recipe!

Care. Well, Tom, but how stands thy own affair? Is Clarinda kind yet?

Cle. Faith, I cannot say she's absolutely kind, but she's pretty near it: for she's grown so ridiculously ill-humoured to me of late, that, if she keeps the same airs a week longer, I am in hopes to find as much ease from her folly, as my constancy would from her good-nature.-But to be plain, I'm afraid I have some secret rival in the case; for women's vanity seldom gives them courage enough to use an old lover heartily ill, till they are first sure of a new one, that they intend to use better.

Care. What says sir Solomon? He is your friend, I presume?

Cle. Yes; at least I can make him so when I please. There is an odd five hundred pound in her fortune, that he has a great mind should stick to his fingers, when he pays in the rest on't, which I am afraid I must comply with; for she can't easily marry without his consent.-And yet she's so altered in her behaviour of late, that I scarce know what to do.-Prithee, take a turn and advise me.

Care. With all my heart.

[Exeunt.

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Sup. I'll never tell while I live, sir. Sir Sol. Nay, then, I'll trust thee further. Between thee and I, Supple, I have reason to believe my wife hates me, too.

Sup. Ah, dear sir! I doubt that's no secret; for, to say the truth, my lady's bitter young, and gamesome.

Sir Sol. But can she have the impudence, think'st thou, to make a cuckold of a knight, one that was dubbed by the royal sword?

Sup. Alas, sir, I warrant she has the courage of a countess; if she's once provoked, she cares not what she does in her passion; if you were ten times a knight she'd give you dub for dub,

sir.

Sir Sol. Ah! Supple, when her blood's up, I confess she's the devil; and I question if the whole conclave of cardinals could lay her. But suppose she should resolve to give me a sample of her sex, and make me a cuckold in cool blood?

Sup. Why, if she should, sir, don't take it so to heart; cuckolds are no such monsters now-adays in the city, you know, sir, it's so many honest men's fortune, that no body minds it there; and, at this end of the town, a cuckold has as much respect as his wife, for aught I see; for gentlemen don't know but it may be their own case another day, and so people are willing to do as they would be done by.

Sir Sol. And yet I do not think but my spouse is honest-and think she is not-would I were satisfied!

Sup. Troth, sir, I don't know what to think; but, in my conscience, I believe good looking after her can do her no harm.

Sir Sol. Right, Supple; and in order to it, I'll first demolish her visiting days. For how do I know but they may be so many private clubs for cuckoldom?

Sup. Ah, sir! your worship knows I was always against your coming to this end of the

town.

Sir Sol. Thou wert indeed, my honest Supple: but woman! fair and faithless woman, wormed aud worked me to her wishes;-like fond Mark

SCENE I. CLARINDA's apartment.

Enter CLARINDA and SYLVIA.

Cla. Ha, ha! poor Sylvia!

Antony, I let my empire moulder from my hands, and gave up all for love.-I must have a young wife, with a murrain to me-I hate her, too-and yet the devil on't is, I'm still jealous of her.Stay! let me reckon up all the fashionable virtues she has that can make a man happy. In the first place-I think her very ugly. Sup. Ah, that's because you are married to her, sir.

Sir Sol. As for her expences, no arithmetic can reach them; she's always longing for something dear and useless; she will certainly ruin me in china, silks, ribbands, fans, laces, perfumes, washes, powder, patches, jessamine, gloves, and ratifia.

Sup. Ah, sir, that's a cruel liquor with them. Sir Sol. To sum up all would run me mad.The only way to put a stop to her career, must be to put off my coach, turn away her chairmen, lock out her Swiss porter, bar up the doors, keep out all visitors, and then she'll be less expensive. Sup. Ay, sir, for few women think it worth their while to dress for their husbands.

Sir Sol. Then we shan't be plagued with my old lady Tittle-tattle's howd'ye's in a morning, nor my lady Dainty's spleen, or the sudden indisposition of that grim beast her horrible Dutch mastiff.

Sup. No, sir, nor the impertinence of that great fat creature, my lady Swill-Tea.

Sir Sol. And her squinting daughter.--No, Supple, after this night, nothing in petticoats shall come within ten yards of my doors. Sup. Nor in breeches neither.

Sir Sol. Only Mr Clerimont; for I expect him to sign articles with me for the five hundred pounds he is to give me, for that ungovernable jade, my niece Clarinda.—But now to my own affairs. I'll step into the Park, and see if I can meet with my hopeful spouse there. I warrant, engaged in some innocent freedom, as she calls it, as walking in a mask, to laugh at the impertinencies of fops that don't know her; but 'tis more likely, I'm afraid, a plot to intrigue with those that do. Oh, how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding-ring! [Exeunt.

ACT II.

Syl. Nay, prithee, don't laugh at me. There's no accounting for inclination: for if there were, you know, why should it be a greater folly in me, to fall in love with a man I never saw but once in my life, than it is in you to resist an honest gentleman, whose fidelity has deserved your heart an hundred times over.

Cla. Ah, but an utter stranger, cousin, and one that, for aught you know, may be no gentleman. Syl. That's impossible: his conversation could not be counterfeit. An elevated wit, and good breeding, have a natural lustre that's inimitable. Beside, he saved my life at the hazard of his own; so that part of what I give him, is but gratitude.

Cla. But suppose now he is married, and has three or four children?

Syl. Psha! prithee don't tease me with so many ill-natured objections. I tell you he is not

dam?

married! I am sure he is not: for I never saw | [Aside.] Was there a good deal of company, maa face look more in humour in my life. Beside, he told me himself, he was a country gentleman, just come to town upon business: and I am resolved to believe him.

Lady Sad. Abundance! and the best I have seen this season: for 'twas between twelve and one, the very hour, you know, when the mob are violently hungry. Oh, the air was so inspiring! so amorous! And, to complete the pleasure, I was attacked in conversation by the most charmmodest, agreeably insinuating young fellow, sure, that ever woman played the fool with. Cla. Who was it?

Cla. Well, well; I'll suppose you both as fit for one another as a couple of tallies. But, still, my dear, you know there's a surly old father's command against you; he is in articles to marrying, you to another: and, though I know love is a notable contriver, I can't see how you'll get over that difficulty.

Syl. 'Tis a terrible one, I own; but, with a little of your assistance, dear Clarinda, I am still in hopes to bring it to an even wager, I prove as wise as my father.

Cla. Nay, you may be sure of me; you may see, by the management of my own amours, I have so natural a compassion for disobedience, I shan't be able to refuse you any thing in distress-There's my hand; tell me how I can serve you?

Syl. Why, thus:-because I would not wholly discover myself to him at once, I have sent him a note to visit me here, as if these lodgings were my own.

Lady Sad. Nay, Heaven knows; his face is as entirely new as his conversation. What wretches our young fellows are to him!

Syl. What sort of a person?

Lady Sad. Tall, straight, well-limbed, walked firm, and a look as cheerful as a May-day morning.

Syl. The picture's very like: pray Heaven it is not my gentleman's!

Cla. I wish this don't prove my colonel.

[Aside. [Aside.

Syl. How came you to part with him so soon? Lady Sad. Oh, name it not! that eternal damper of all pleasure, my husband, sir Solomon, came into the Mall in the very crisis of our conCla. Hither! to my lodgings! 'Twas well Iversation-I saw him at a distance, and comsent Colonel Standfast word I should not be atplained that the air grew tainted, that I was sick home. [Aside. o' th' sudden, and left him in such abruptness and confusion, as if he had been himself my husband.

Syl. I hope you'll pardon my freedom, since one end of my taking it, too, was to have your opinion of him before I engage any farther.

Cla. Oh, it needs no apology; any thing of mine is at your service-I am only afraid my troublesome lover, Mr Clerimont, should happen to see him, who is of late so impertinently jealous of a rival, though from what cause I know not— not but I lie too-[Aside.] I say, should he see him, your country gentleman would be in danI can tell you.

ger,

Syl. Oh, there's no fear of that; for I have ordered him to be brought in the back way: when I have talked with him a little alone, I'll find an occasion to leave him with you; and then we'll compare our opinions of him.

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Cla. A melancholy disappointment, indeed! Lady Sad. Oh, 'tis a husband's nature to give them.

A Servant enters, and whispers SYLVIA. Syl. Desire him to walk in-Cousin, you'll be at hand?

Cla. In the next room-Come, madam, Sylvia has a little business: I'll shew you some of the sweetest, prettiest figured china. Lady Sad. My dear, I wait on you.

[Exeunt LADY SAD, and CLAR. Enter ATALL, as MR FREEMAN. Syl. You find, sir, I have kept my word in seeing you; 'tis all you yet have asked of me; and when I know 'tis in my power to be more obliging, there's nothing you can command in honour I shall refuse you.

Atall. This generous offer, madam, is so high an obligation, that it were almost mean in me to ask a farther favour. But 'tis a lover's merit to be a miser in his wishes, and grasp at all occasions to enrich them. I own I feel your charms too sensibly prevail, but dare not give a loose to my ambitious thoughts, till I have passed one dreadful doubt that shakes them.

Syl. If 'tis in my power to clear it, ask me freely.

Atall. I tremble at the trial; and yet, methinks, my fears are vain: but yet to kill or cure

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