Alith. Come, brother, your wife is yet innocent, you see; but have a care of too strong an imagination, lest, like an over-concerned timorous gamester, by fancying an unlucky cast, it should come. Women and fortune are truest still to those that trust ’em.
Lucy. And any wild thing grows but the more fierce and hungry for being kept up, and more dangerous to the keeper.
Alith. There’s doctrine for all husbands, Mr. Harcourt.
Har. I edify, madam, so much, that I am impatient till I am one.
Dor. And I edify so much by example, I will never be one.
Spark. And because I will not disparage my parts, I’ll ne’er be one.
Horn. And I, alas! can’t be one.
Pinch. But I must be one—against my will to a country wife, with a country murrain to me!
Mrs. Pinch. And I must be a country wife still too, I find; for I can’t, like a city one, be rid of my musty husband, and do what I list.
[A side.
Horn. Now, sir, I must pronounce your wife innocent, though I blush whilst I do it; and I am the only man by her now exposed to shame, which I will straight drown in wine, as you shall your suspicion; and the ladies’ troubles we’ll divert with a ballad.— Doctor, where are your maskers?
Lucy. Indeed, she’s innocent, sir, I am her witness; and her end of coming out was but to see her sister’s wedding; and what she has said to your face of her love to Mr. Horner, was but the usual innocent revenge on a husband’s jealousy;—was it not, madam, speak?
Mrs. Pinch. [aside to Lucy and Horner]. Since you’ll have me tell more lies—[Aloud.] Yes, indeed, bud. Pinch. For my own sake fain I would all believe; Cuckolds, like lovers, should themselves deceive. But—
[Sighs. His honour is least safe (too late I find) Who trusts it with a foolish wife or friend.
A Dance of Cuckolds. Horn. Vain fops but court and dress, and keep a pother, To pass for women’s men with one another; But he who aims by women to be prized, First by the men, you see, must be despised.
[Exeunt.
EPILOGUE
SPOKEN BY MRS. KNEP
O’er vizard-mask in public domineer,
And what you’d do to her, if in place where;
Nay, have the confidence to cry, “Come out!”
Yet when she says, “Lead on!” you are not stout;
But to your well-dressed brother straight turn round,
And cry, “Pox on her, Ned, she can’t be sound!”
Then slink away, a fresh one to engage,
With so much seeming heat and loving rage,
You’d frighten listening actress on the stage;
Till she at last has seen you huffing come,
And talk of keeping in the tiring- room,
Yet cannot be provoked to lead her home.
Next, you Falstaffs of fifty, who beset
Your buckram maidenheads, which your friends get;
And whilst to them you of achievements boast,
They share the booty, and laugh at your cost.
In fine, you essenced boys, both old and young,
Who would be thought so eager, brisk, and strong,
Yet do the ladies, not their husbands wrong;
Whose purses for your manhood make excuse,
And
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