*

CUSTOM, with all our modern laws combin'd,
Has given such power despotic to mankind,
That we have only so much virtue now
As they are pleas'd in favour to allow;
Thus, like mechanic work, we're us'd with scorn,
And wound up only for a present turn.
Some are for having our whole sex enslav'd,
Affirming we've no souls, and cann't be sav'd; *
But were the women all of my opinion,
We'd soon shake off this false, usurp'd dominion;
We'd make the tyrants own that we cou'd prove
As fit for other bus'ness as for love.
Lord! what prerogative might we obtain,
Could we from yielding a few months refrain!
How fondly would our dangling lovers dote!
What homage would be paid to petticoat!
"Twou'd be a jest to see the change of fate;
How might we all of politics debate,

Promise and swear what we ne'er meant to do,
And, what's still harder, Keep our Secrets too.
Ay, marry! Keep a Secret, says a beau,
And sneers at some ill-natur'd wit below;
But, faith, if we should tell but half we know,
There's many a spruce young fellow in this place
Would never more presume to shew his face.
Women are not so weak, whate'er men prate;
How many tip-top beaux have had the fate
T' enjoy from mamma's Secrets their estate!
Who, if her early folly had been known,
Had rid behind the coach that's now their own.
But here the wondrous Secret you discover,-
A lady ventures for a friend-a lover.
Prodigious! for my part, I frankly own,

I'd spoil'd the Wonder, and the woman shown,

A

BY

TO-NIGHT we come upon a bold design,
To try to please without one borrow'd line;
Our plot is new, and regularly clear,
And not one single tittle from Moliere.
O'er buried poets we with caution tread,
And parish sextons leave to rob the dead.
For you, bright British fair, in hopes to charm ye,
We bring, to-night, a lover from the army.
You know the soldiers have the strangest arts,
Such a proportion of prevailing parts,
You'd think that they rid post to women's hearts.
I wonder whence they draw their bold pretence;
We do not choose them, sure, for our defence:
That plea is both impolitic and wrong,
And only suits such dames as want a tongue.
Is it their eloquence and fine address?
The softness of their language?—Nothing less.

Is it their courage, that they bravely dare
To storm the sex at once?-'Egad! 'tis there.
They act by us as in the rough campaign,
Unmindful of repulses, charge again :

They mine and countermine, resolved to win,
And, if a breach is made,-they will come in.
You'll think, by what we have of soldiers said,
Our female wit was in the service bred:
But she is to the hardy toil a stranger;
She loves the cloth indeed, but hates the danger:
Yet, to this circle of the brave and gay,
She bid one, for her good intentions, say,
She hopes you'll not reduce her to half-pay.
As for our play, 'tis English humour all:
Then will you let our manufacture fall?
Would you the honour of our nation raise,
Keep English credit up, and English plays.

SCENE I-A Tavern.

Colonel FAINWELL and FREEMAN over a bottle. Free. Come, colonel, his majesty's health. You are as melancholy as if you were in love! I wish some of the beauties of Bath ha'n't snapt your heart.

Col. Why, faith, Freeman, there is something in't; I have seen a lady at Bath, who has kindled such a flame in me, that all the waters there cann't quench.

Free. Women, like some poisonous animals, carry their antidote about 'em-Is she not to be had, colonel?

Col. That's a difficult question to answer; how ever, I resolve to try: perhaps you may be able to serve me; you merchants know one another The lady told me herself she was under the charge of four persons.

Free. Odso! 'tis Mrs Anne Lovely. Col. The same-Do you know her? Free. Know her! ay.-Faith, colonel, your condition is more desperate than you imagine: Why, she is the talk and pity of the whole town; and it is the opinion of the learned that she must die a maid.

Col. Say you so? That's somewhat odd, in this charitable city. She's a woman, I hope?

Free. For aught I know,-but it had been as well for her, had nature made her any other part of the creation. The man who keeps this house served her father; he is a very honest fellow, and may be of use to you; we'll send for him to take a glass with us: he'll give you her whole history, and 'tis worth your hearing.

Col. But may one trust him?

Free. With your life: I have obligations enough upon him to make him do any thing: I serve him with wine. [Knocks. Col. Nay, I know him very well myself. I once used to frequent a club that was kept here.

Enter Drawer.

Draw. Gentlemen, d'ye call? Free. Ay-send up your master. Draw. Yes, sir.

[Exit.

Col. Do you know any of this lady's guardians, Freeman?

Free. Yes, I know two of them very well.
Enter SACKBUT.

Free. Here comes one will give you an account of them all.-Mr Sackbut, we sent for you to take a glass with us. "Tis a maxim among the friends of the bottle, that as long as the master is in company, one may be sure of good wine.

Sack. Sir, you shall be sure to have as good wine as you send in.-Colonel, your most humble servant; you are welcome to town.

VOL. IV.

Col. I thank you, Mr Sackbut.

Sack. I am as glad to see you as I should a hundred tun of French claret custom free.-My service to you, sir. [Drinks.] You don't look so merry as you used to do; ar'n't you well, colonel? Free. He has got a woman in his head, landlord; can you help him?

Sack. If 'tis in my power, I sha'n't scruple to serve my friend.

Col. 'Tis one perquisite of your calling. Sack. Ay, at t'other end of the town, where you officers use, women are good forcers of trade: a well-custom'd house, a handsome bar-keeper, with clean obliging drawers, soon get the master an estate; but our citizens seldom do any thing but cheat within the walls.-But as to the lady, colonel, point you at particulars? or have you a good Champagne stomach? Are you in full pay, or reduc'd, colonel.

Col. Reduc'd, reduc'd, landlord.

Free. To the miserable condition of a lover!

Sack. Pish! that's preferable to half-pay: a woman's resolution may break before the peace: push her home, colonel; there's no parlying with the fair sex.

Col. Were the lady her own mistress, I have some reasons to believe I should soon command in chief.

Free. You know Mrs Lovely, Mr Sackbut? Sack. Know her! Ay, poor Nancy : I have carried her to school many a frosty morning. Alas! if she's the woman, I pity you, colonel : her father, my old master, was the most whimsical, out-ofthe-way temper'd man I ever heard of, as you will guess by his last will and testament. This was his only child, and I have heard him wish her dead a thousand times.

Col. Why so?

Suck. He hated posterity, you must know, and wish'd the world were to expire with himself. He used to swear, if she had been a boy, he would have qualified him for the opera.

Free. 'Twas a very unnatural resolution in a father.

Sack. He died worth thirty thousand pounds, which he left to his daughter, provided she married with the consent of her guardians; but that she might be sure never to do so, he left her in the care of four men, as opposite to each other as the four elements: each has his quarterly rule; and three months in a year she is oblig'd to be subject to each of their humours; and they are pretty different, I assure you.-She is just come from Bath.

Col. 'Twas there I saw her.

Sack. Ay, sir, the last quarter was her beau guardian's. She appears in all public places during his reign.

Col. She visited a lady who boarded in the same house with me: I liked her person, and found an T

opportunity to tell her so. She replied, she had no objection to mine; but if I could not reconcile contradictions, I must not think of her, for that she was condemned to the caprice of four persons, who never yet agreed in any one thing, and she was obliged to please them all.

Sack. 'Tis most true, sir: I'll give you a short description of the men, and leave you to judge of the poor lady's condition. One is a kind of virtuoso, a silly, half-witted fellow, but positive and surly; fond of every thing antique and foreign, and wears his clothes of the fashion of the last century; doats upon travellers; and believes more of Sir John Mandeville than he does of the Bible.

Col. That must be a rare odd fellow !

Sack. Another is a 'Change broker; a fellow that will out-lie the devil for the advantage of stock, and cheat his father that got him, in a bargain he is a great stickler for trade, and hates every man that wears a sword.

Free. He is a great admirer of the Dutch management, and swears they understand trade better than any nation under the sun.

Suck. The third is an old beau, that has May in his fancy and dress, but December in his face and his heels he admires all the new fashions, and those must be French; loves operas, balls, masquerades, and is always the most tawdry of the whole company on a birth-day.

Col. These are pretty opposite to one another, truly:-And the fourth, what is he, landlord? Sack. A very rigid quaker, whose quarter began this day. I saw Mrs Lovely go in, not above two hours ago,-Sir Philip set her down. What think you now, colonel; is not the poor lady to be pitied?

Col. Ay, and rescu'd too, landlord.
Free. In my opinion that's impossible.

Col. There is nothing impossible to a lover.— What would not a man attempt for a fine woman and thirty thousand pounds? Besides, my honour is at stake; I promised to deliver her, and she bid me win her and wear her.

Sack. That's fair, faith.

Free. If it depended upon knight-errantry, I should not doubt your setting free the damsel; but to have avarice, impertinence, hypocrisy, and pride at once to deal with, requires more cunning than generally attends a man of honour.

Col. My fancy tells me I shall come off with glory. I am resolved to try, however.-Do you know all the guardians, Mr Sackbut?

Sack. Very well, sir; they all use my house. Col. And will you assist me, if occasion requires?

Sack. In every thing I can, colonel.

Free. I'll answer for him: and whatever I can

serve you in, you may depend on. I know Mr Periwinkle and Mr Tradelove; the latter has a very great opinion of my interest abroad. happen'd to have a letter from a correspondent two hours before the news arrived of the French king's death: I communicated it to him; upon which he bought all the stock he could ; and what

with that, and some wagers he laid, he told me he had got to the tune of five hundred pounds; so that I am much in his good graces.

Col. I don't know but you may be of service to me, Freeman.

Free. If I can, command me, colonel.

Col. Isn't it possible to find a suit of clothes ready made, at some of these sale shops, fit to rig out a beau, think you, Mr Sackbut?

Sack. O! hang 'em-No, colonel, they keep nothing ready made that a gentleman would be seen in: but I can fit you with a suit of clothes, if you'd make a figure-velvet and gold brocade

They were pawn'd to me by a French count, who had been stript at play, and wanted money to carry him home: he promised to send for them, but I have not heard any thing of him.

Free. He has not fed upon frogs long enough yet to recover his loss; ha, ha!

Col. Ha, ha! Well, the clothes will do, Mr Sackbut, though we must have three or four fellows in tawdry liveries; they can be procur'd, I hope.

Free. 'Egad! I have a brother come from the West Indies that can match you; and, for expe. dition sake, you shall have his servants: there's a black, a tawney Moor, and a Frenchman: they don't speak one word of English, so can make no mistake.

Col. Excellent -'Egad! I shall look like an Indian prince. First, I'll attack my beau guardian; where lives he?

to

Sack. Faith, somewhere about St James's, tho' say in what street I cannot; but any chairman will tell you where Sir Philip Modelove lives.

Free. Oh! you'll find him in the Park at eleven every day; at least, I never pass through at that hour without seeing him there.-But what do you intend?

Col. To address him in his own way, and find what he designs to do with the lady. Free. And what then?

Col. Nay, that I cann't tell; but I shall take my measures accordingly.

Sack. Well, 'tis a mad undertaking in my mind: but here's to your success, colonel. [Drinks.

Col. 'Tis something out of the way, I confess ; but Fortune may chance to smile, and I succeed. -Come, landlord, let me see those clothes.Freeman, I shall expect you'll leave word with Mr Sackbut where one may find you upon occasion; and send me my Indian equipage immediately, d'ye hear?

Free. Immediately.

[Exit.

Col. Bold was the man who ventur'd first to sea, But the first vent'ring lovers bolder were. The path of love's a dark and dang'rous way, Without a land-mark, or one friendly star, And he that runs the risk deserves the fair.

SCENE II.-PRIM'S House.

[Exeunt.

Enter Mrs LOVELY and her maid BETTY. Betty. Bless me, madam! Why do you fret