Saunt. Faith, Caper, and so she will. Well, I am resolved to marry Victoria for fear of the worst:-Madam, your most devoted servant: I hope our difference with Mr. Goodvile to-night.

Mrs. Good. Dear sir, it needs no excuse.

Cap. My resentment, madam

Tru. You are too ceremonious, gentlemen, and my lady will fear she has lost you.

Cap. Dear Jack, as I told thee before, I must bring thee acquainted with those ladies.

Saunt. Pr'ythee put on a mask, and come among us, Jack, faith do.

Tru. Sirs, I'll wait on you in a moment.

Both. Dear soul, adieu.

[Embracing him. [Exeunt singing and dancing. Tru. These coxcombs, madam, came in a good time; they were never seasonable before.

Mrs. Good. Diseases and visitations are necessary sometimes to sweep away the noisome crowds that infest and incumber the world.

Mal. As I have often said, I must publish, I must spread; and so good-b'ye to you.

Enter LETTICE.

i

[Exit.

Let. Oh! madam, yonder's my master raving for his coach: says he'll into the country presently: has given order to disperse the company; what will you do?

Mrs. Good. Let him go, 'twere pity to hinder him:ha, ha, ha! into the country? I'd as soon believe he would turn capuchin.

Tru. But madam, it was inhumanly done to come yourself upon him: one would have thought that I had used him bad enough for the wise mistake he made of Victoria.

and

Mrs. Good. I would not have missed it for the world. Now would he come on his knees for composition; if I do not bring him to it within these four hoursTru. Why, madam, what will you do?

Mrs. Good. Put on all the notorious affectations and ridiculous impertinences that ever the most eminent of our sex have studied, or the coxcombs of your sex admired; then, of a sudden, seem to grow fond of both those clincant* fools, which I am sure he of all things loaths: yet do it so forcedly, that he himself shall find it only intended to give him vexation.

Tru. Have you then maliciously designed, in spite of nature, to keep me constant?

Mrs. Good. Which you will be sure to be.

Tru. A dozen, new, fresh, young, unseen beauties, and the devil himself in the rear of 'em, cannot make me otherwise; I never really loved or lived till now. There is nothing I'd not wish to be, except the very husband himself, rather than lose you.

Enter VALENTINE and CAMILLA.

Val. Jack Truman!

Tru. Well, Ned, what's the matter?

Val. Treason, Truman: your being here with Mrs. Goodvile, I fear is discovered; I heard some such thing whispered among the masqueraders, and Goodvile him self seems suddenly altered; I would advise you to come and shew yourself, and make the best on't.

Mrs. Good. Let me alone; I'll secure all, I'll warrant you. I'm sure he can have no positive proofs: I'll instantly go and put all things in a confusion; contradict all the orders he has given for going in the country; shut up myself in my chamber, and not hear a word of him till he comes upon submission.-Lettice, follow me to my chamber presently. [Exit.

Tru. Right exquisite woman and wife, good luck attend thee.

[Exit.

Let. Well, my lady certainly of a young lady knows her business, and understands the managing of a husband the best of any woman in the world: I'll swear she is an

* Clincant—dressed in finery; from clinquante, tinsel.

ingenious person: forty ladies now, at such an accident, would have been hurried and afraid, and the poor waiting-woman must have been sent forward and backward, and backward and forward, to hearken and enquire; but she shows all her changes in a motion.

Enter GOODVILE.

Good. How now, Lettice? where's your lady?
Let. Within, sir, in her chamber.

Good. Are you sure of it?

Let. She commanded me to follow her thither but

now.

Good. Is she alone there?

Let. Ay, sir, I'll assure you she seldom desires company-but I must hasten and follow her.

Good. Stay a little-are you sure she was in the house, before this disturbance happened in the garden?

Let. Sure, sir! why I myself was at the chamberwindow with her, when first she heard you exclaim against madam Victoria! Poor creature, I was afraid she would have fallen down dead on the floor: I catched her in my arms, begged her on my knees not to run out; but she would hear nothing, but in spite of force broke from me, and came hither with all that impatience and rage, the too sensible resentment of your unkindness had raised in her.

Good. Get you in presently, do you hear; and take no notice of what I have said to you, as you tender your well-being.

Let. Yes, sir;-but if I conceal a word of it, may I never serve a London lady again, but be condenm'd to be a country chamber-maid, and kill fleas as long as I live. [Exit,

Good. If I should have been in the wrong all this while, and mistaken my own dear wife for Victoria !— Ah! Curse on this hot head of mine! Pox on't, it is impossible! Yet that mischievous rogue Malagene was all the while in the garden, and he has been at his

doubts and ambiguities, and may-be's with me;-by this light I am a cuckold, anarrant, rank, stinking cuckold.

Enter VICTORIA.

Vict. What will become of me! whither shall I fly to hide my misfortune? Oh! that I might never see the light again, but be for ever concealed in these shades.

Good. Dear Victoria, is't you? be free with me, were you really in the garden before, to-night, or no?

Vict. I have not been out of the house since it was dark till this minute, nor had I come hither now, but that I am destitute where to conceal myself from the malicious eyes and tongues of those, to whom your baseness has given an opportunity of triumphing over my misfortune and ruined honour.

Good. Be not so outrageous; I'll reconcile all yet.

Vict. Which way is't possible? By to-morrow morning your very footmen will have it in their mouths; and Malagene, that keeps an office of intelligence for all the scandal in town, will be spreading it among his coffee-house companions, and at the play whisper it to the orange-women, who shall make a fulsome jest of it to the next coxcomb that comes in half drunk, to lolk and play, and be nauseously lewd with 'em in public.

Good. I tell thee it shall not be; Malagene's my creature, or at least henceforth I'll make him so; I have reasons for it, and to believe also that my wife, my own delicate damned wife, was the same I mistook for you in the garden to-night.

Vict. "Tis true, I was at the same time to see for her in her chamber, and she was not there; but cannot believe her in the least guilty of what you seem tot accuse her of.

Good. Confound her!--she's an exquisite jilt, thorough-paced and practised in all the cunning arts and slights of falshood: 'sdeath, how I could mince her! But

here comes Malagene; he knows all, and I'll make him confess all, or I'll murder him.

Enter MALAGENE.

Well sir, what say you to this matter?

Mal. Faith, bully, I think my dear kinswoman has mauled you to some purpose; I'll say this for her, she has the true blood of the Malagenes in her: Tol lol dara lal, &c.

Good. What is't you mean, fool? Be plain, and unfold yourself.

Mal. Why you must know, Frank, having a particular esteem for my family, (the nearest relation of which I would go fifty miles to see hanged) I do think her as very a-but no more,-Mum, dear heart, mum, I say.

my

Good. What's that you say, sir? what do you think

wife?

Mal. Ay what, Frank? what now?

Good. Nay, sir, that you must resolve me.

Mal. Why then I'll tell thee, Frank; dost thou really think I love thee?

Good. I know you'll say so, sir, because you fear me. Mal. Then pr'ythee do so much as lend me ten guineas for a day or two.

Good. Oh, sir, to the purpose, to the purpose; be brief.

Mal. Nay then, mum, I say again.

Good. Will you never leave vexing me with your impertinence? Must I be always forced to use you ill, to bring you to good manners?

Mal. Faith, child, I am loth to make mischief; I have been a very wicked, ill-natured, impudent fellow, that's the truth on't: but I find I lose myself by it; the very poets themselves, that were wont to stand in awe of me, care not a louse for me now; and there's not a common whore in town but calls me rogue and rascal to my face, as impudently as if I were her pimp.