Mira. With all my heart, dear Sir Wilfull. What shall we do for musick?
Foib. O sir, some that were provided for Sir Rowland’s entertainment are yet within call.
[A dance.
Lady. As I am a person I can hold out no longer;—I have wasted my spirits so to-day already, that I am ready to sink under the fatigue; and I cannot but have some fears upon me yet, that my son Fainall will pursue some desperate course.
Mira. Madam, disquiet not yourself on that account; to my knowledge his circumstances are such, he must of force comply. For my part, I will contribute all that in me lyes to a reunion; in the meantime, madam [to Mrs. Fain.], let me before these witnesses restore to you this deed of trust; it may be a means, well managed, to make you live easily together.
Lest mutual falshood stain the bridal-bed:
For each deceiver to his cost may find,
That marriage frauds too oft are paid in kind.
Exeunt omnes.
EPILOGUE
SPOKEN BY MRS. BRACEGIRDLE
I’m thinking how this play’ll be pulled to pieces.
But pray consider, e’er you doom its fall,
How hard a thing ’twould be, to please you all.
There are some criticks so with spleen diseased,
They scarcely come inclining to be pleased:
And sure he must have more than mortal skill,
Who pleases any one against his will.
Then, all bad poets we are sure are foes,
And how their number’s swelled the town well knows:
In shoals, I’ve marked ’em judging in the pit;
Though they’re on no pretence for judgment fit,
But that they have been damned for want of wit.
Since when, they by their own offences taught,
Set up for spies on plays, and finding fault.
Others there are whose malice we’d prevent;
Such, who watch plays, with scurrilous intent
To mark out who by Characters are meant.
And though no perfect likeness they can trace;
Yet each pretends to know the Copied Face.
These, with false glosses feed their own ill-nature,
And turn to Libel, what was meant a Satire.
May such malicious Fops this fortune find,
To think themselves alone the Fools designed:
If any are so arrogantly vain,
To think they singly can support a Scene,
And furnish Fool enough to entertain.
For well the learned and the judicious know,
That Satire scorns to stoop so meanly low,
As any one abstracted Fop to show.
For, as when painters form a matchless face,
They from each Fair one catch some different grace:
And shining features in one portrait blend,
To which no single beauty must pretend:
So poets oft, do in one piece expose
Whole belles assemblées of cocquets and beaux.
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