_Chorist, Constable, Watch, Country Boors, Trepanners, Pages, with other Officials._ _The Scene, Seville._ LADY ALIMONY. ACT I., SCENE 1. _Enter_ TRILLO. TRIL. Hey, boys! never did my spirit chirp more cheerfully since I had one. Here is work for Platonics. Never did ladies, brave buxom girls, dispense at easier rates with their forfeited honours. This were an excellent age for that Roman Carvilius to live in, who never loved any sheets worser than those his wife lay in, nor his wife any lodging worse than where her decrepit consort slept in. Divorces are now as common as scolding at Billingsgate. O Alimony, Alimony! a darling incomparably dearer than a sear-icy bed, possessed of the spirit of a dull, inactive husband! A fresh flowery spring and a chill frosty winter never suit well together. He were a rare justice, in these times of separation, who had the ceremonial art to join hearts together as well as hands; but that chemical cement is above the alchemy of his office or verge of his ministerial charge. Heyday! who comes here? The very professed smock-satyr or woman-hater in all Europe; one who, had he lived in that state, or under that zone, might have compared with any Swetnam[105] in all the Albion Island. SCENE II. _Enter_ TIMON, SIPARIUS, _and a_ PAGE. But, sure, he has some high design in hand; he pores so fixedly upon the ground, as on my life he has some swingeing stuff for our fresh Dabrides, who have invested themselves in the Platonic order, and retain courage enough to make an exchange of their old consorts with their new confidants and amorous pretenders. Let us hear him; he mumbles so strangely, he must surely either disburthen [him]self, or stifle his teeming birth for want of timely delivery. TIM. Good, as I live, wondrous good! this is the way to catch the old one. Be all things ready, Siparius? SIP. How do you mean, sir? TIM. What a drolling bufflehead is this! He has been book-holder to my revels for decades of years, and the cuckoldry drone, as if he had slept in Trophonius' cave all his days, desires to know my meaning in the track of his own calling! Sir, shall I question you in your own dialect? Be your stage-curtains artificially drawn, and so covertly shrouded as the squint-eyed groundling[s] may not peep into your discovery? SIP. Leave that care to me, sir; it is my charge. TIM. But were our bills posted, that our house may be with a numerous auditory stored? our boxes by ladies of quality and of the new dress crowdingly furnished? our galleries and ground-front answerably to their pay completed? SIP. Assure yourself, sir, nothing is a-wanting that may give way to the poet's improvement. TIM. Thou sayest well; this is indeed the poet's third day, and must raise his pericranium deeply steeped in Frontiniac, a fair revenue for his rich Timonic fancy; or he must take a long adieu of the spirit of sack and that noble napry till the next vintage. But, Siparius----