but false, deluding woman?-Woman, whose composition inverts humanity; their bodies heavenly, but their souls are clay.

Wild. Come, come, colonel, this is too much : I know your wrongs received from Lurewell may excuse your resentment against her. But it is unpardonable to charge the failings of a single woman upon the whole sex. I have found one, whose virtues

Stand. So have I, Sir Harry; I have found one whose pride's above yielding to a prince. And if lying, dissembling, perjury, and falsehood, be no breaches in a woman's honour, she is as innocent as infancy.

Wild. Well, colonel, I find your opinion grows stronger by opposition; I shall now, therefore, wave the argument, and only beg you for this day to make a shew of complaisance at least.- -Here comes my charming bride.

Enter DARLING and ANGELICA. Stand. [Saluting ANGELICA.] I wish you, madam, all the joys of love and fortune.

Enter CLINCHER Junior.

Clin. Gentlemen and ladies, I'm just upon the spur, and have only a minute to take my leave. Wild. Whither are you bound, sir?

sir.

Clin. Bound, sir! I am going to the jubilee,

Darl. Bless me, cousin! how came you by these clothes?

Clin. Clothes! ha, ha, ha! the rarest jest! ha, ha, ha! I shall burst, by Jupiter Ammon, I shall burst.

Darl What's the matter, cousin?

Clin. The matter! ha, ha, ha! Why, an honest porter, ha, ha, ha! has knocked out my brother's brains, ha, ha, ha!

Wild. A very good jest, i'faith, ha, ha, ha! Clin. Ay, sir, but the jest of all is, he knocked out his brains with a hammer, and so he is as dead as a door-nail, ha, ha, ha!

Darl. And do you laugh, wretch?

Clin. Laugh! ha, ha, ha! let me see e'er a younger brother in England that won't laugh at such a jest.

Ang. You appeared a very sober, pious gentle. man some hours ago.

Clin. Pshaw, I was a fool then: but now, madam, I'm a wit; I can rake now. As for your part, madam, you might have had me once; but now, madam, if you should fall to eating chalk, or gnawing the sheets, it is none of my fault. Now, madam-I have got an estate, and I must go to the jubilee.

Enter CLINCHER Senior in a Blanket.

Clin. sen. Must you so, rogue, must ye? You will go to the jubilee, will you?

Clin. jun. A ghost! a ghost! Send for the Dean and Chapter presently.

Clin. sen. A ghost! No, no, sirrah; I'm an elder brother, rogue.

Clin. jun. I don't care a farthing for that; I'm sure you're dead in law.

Clin. sen. Why so, sirrah, why so? Clin. jun. Because, sir, I can get a fellow to swear he knocked out your brains.

Wild. An odd way of swearing a man out of his life!

Clin. jun. Smell him, gentlemen; he has a deadly scent about him.—

Clin. sen. Truly the apprehensions of death may have made me savour a little. O, Lord! the colonel! The apprehension of him may make the savour worse, I'm afraid.

Clin. jun. In short, sir, were you a ghost, or brother, or devil, I will go to the jubilee, by Jupiter Ammon.

Stand. Go to the jubilee! go to the BearGarden.--The travel of such fools as you doubly injures our country: you expose our native follies, which ridicule us amongst strangers, and return fraught only with their vices, which you vend here for fashionable gallantry: a travelling fool is as dangerous as a home-bred villain. Get you to your native plough and cart, converse with animals like yourselves, sheep and oxen: men are creatures you don't understand.

Wild. Let 'em alone, colonel, their folly will be now diverting. Come, gentlemen, we'll dispute this point some other time: I hear some fiddles tuning; let's hear how they can entertain us. [A servant enters, and whispers WildAir.

Wild. Madam, shall I beg you to entertain the company in the next room for a moment?

[To DARL. Darl. With all my heart-Come, gentlemen. [Exeunt all but WILDAIR. Wild. A lady to enquire for me! Who can this be?

Wild. Hey-day! Why, madam, I'm sure I never swore to marry you: I made indeed a slight promise, upon condition of your granting me a small favour; but you would not consent, you know.

Lure. How he upbraids me with my shame! Can you deny your binding vows, when this appears a witness against your falsehood? [Shews a ring.] Methinks the motto of this sacred pledge should flash confusion in your guilty face-Read, read here the binding words of love and honour

words not unknown to your perfidious tongue, though utter strangers to your treacherous heart. Wild. The woman's stark staring mad, that's certain.

Lure. Was it maliciously designed to let me find my misery when past redress; to let me

Smug. So, gentlemen and ladies, I'm glad to find you so merry: is my gracious nephew among ye? Wild. Sir, he dares not shew his face among such honourable company; for your gracious nephew is

Smug. What, sir? Have a care what you say. Wild. A villain, sir.

Smug. With all my heart. I'll pardon you the beating me for that very word. And pray, Sir Harry, when you see him next, tell him this news from me, that I have disinherited him-that I will leave him as poor as a disbanded quarter-master. And this is the positive and stiff resolution of threescore and ten; an age that sticks as obstinately to its purpose, as to the old fashion of its cloak.

Wild. You see, madam, [To ANGEL] how industriously fortune has punished his offence to

you.

Ang. I can scarcely, sir, reckon it an offence, considering the happy consequence of it.

Smug. Oh! Sir Harry, he is as hypocriticalLure. As yourself, Mr Alderman. How fares my good old nurse, pray, sir?

Smug. O. madam, I shall be even with you before I part with your writings and money, that I have in my hands.

Stand. A word with you, Mr Alderman: Do you know this pocket-book?

Smaug. O! Lord, it contains an account of all my secret practices in trading. [Aside.] How came you by it, sir?

Stand. Sir Harry here dusted it out of your pocket at this lady's house yesterday. It contains an account of some secret practices in your of an agreement with a correspondent at Bour merchandising; among the rest, the counterpart deaux, about transporting French wine in Spanish casks. First, return this lady all her writings, then I shall consider whether I shall lay your proceedings before the parliament or not, whose justice will never suffer your smuggling to go unpunished.

Smug. Oh, my poor ship and cargo !

Clin. sen. Hark'e, master, you had as good come along with me to the jubilee now.

Ang. Come, Mr Alderman, for once let a woman advise: Would you be thought an honest man, banish covetousness, that worst gout of age: avarice is a poor, pilfering quality of the soul, and will as certainly cheat, as a thief would steal. Would you be thought a reformer of the times, be less severe in your censures, less rigid in your precepts, and more strict in your example. imitation than compulsion; of which, colonel, Wild. Right, madam, virtue flows freer from your conversion and mine are just examples. In vain are musty morals taught in schools, By rigid teachers, and as rigid rules, Where virtue with a frowning aspect stands, And frights the pupil from its rough commands. But woman

Charming woman can true converts make ;
We love the precept for the teacher's sake.
Virtue in them appears so bright, so gay,
We hear with transport, and with pride obey.
[Exeunt omnes.

Now all depart, each his respective way,
To spend an evening's chat upon the play;
Some to Hippolito's; one homeward goes,
And one, with loving she, retires to th' Rose.
The am'rous pair, in all things frank and free,
Perhaps may save the play in Number Three.
The tearing spark, if Phyllis aught gainsays,
Breaks the drawer's head, kicks her, and murders
Bays.

To coffee some retreat, to save their pockets; Others, more generous, damn the play at Locket's;

But there, I hope, the author's fears are vain;
Malice ne'er spoke in generous champaign.
That poet merits an ignoble death,
Who fears to fall over a brave Monteth.

The privilege of wine we only ask;

You'll taste again, before you damn the flask.
Our author fears not you; but those he may,
Who in cold blood murder a man in tea;
Those men of spleen, who, fond the world should
know it,

Sit down, and for their two-pence damn a poet :
Their criticism's good, that we can say for't;
They understand a play-too well to pay for't:
From box to stage, from stage to box they run,
First steal the play, then damn it when they've

done.

But now, to know what fate may us betide, Among our friends in Cornhill and Cheapside. But those, I think, have but one rule for plays : They'll say they're good, if so the world but says:

If it should please them, and their spouses know it,
They straight enquire what kind of man's the poet.
But from side-box we dread a fearful doom;
All the good-natur'd beaux are gone to Rome.
The ladies' censure I'd almost forgot;
Then for a line or two t' engage their vote:
But that way's odd, below our author's aim,
No less than his whole play is compliment to them:

For their sakes, then, the play cann't miss succeeding;

Though critics may want wit, they have good breeding;

They won't, I'm sure, forfeit the ladies' graces,
By shewing their ill-nature to their faces.
Our business with good manners may be done;
Flatter us here, and damn us when you're gone.

OUR authors have, in most their late essays,
Prologu'd their own, by damning other plays;
Made great harangues to teach you what was fit
To pass for humour, and go down for wit.
Athenian rules must form an English piece,
And Drury-Lane comply with ancient Greece:
Exactness only, such as Terence writ,
Must please our masqu'd Lucretias in the pit.
Our youthful author swears he cares not a pin
For Vossius, Scaliger, Hedelin, or Rapin:
He leaves to learned pens such labour'd lays;
You are the rules by which he writes his plays.
From musty books let others take their view;
He hates dull reading, but he studies you.
First, from you beaus his lesson is formality;
And in your footmen there-most nice morality;
To pleasure them, his Pegasus must fly,
Because they judge-and lodge-three storeys
high.

From the front-boxes he has pick'd his style,
And learns, without a blush to make them smile;
A lesson only taught us by the fair;
A waggish action- -but a modest air.
Among his friends here in the pit he reads
Some rules that every modish writer needs.
He learns from every Covent-Garden critic's
face,

The modern forms of action, time, and place;
The action he's asham'd to name-
-d'ye see;
The time is seven; the place is Number Three
The masks he only reads by passant looks;
He dares not venture far into their books.
Thus then, the pit and boxes are his schools,
Your air, your humour, his dramatic rules.
Let critics censure then, and hiss like snakes;
He gains his ends, if he light fancy takes,
St James's beaus, and Covent-Garden rakes,